Creekside Church Sermon of April 5, 1998 This sermon was presented by Pastor David Bibbee at the Sunday evening Lenten Service at the Goshen City COB "The Heart of Christ" John 15:9-17	Rev. David Bibbee
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Being the preacher who brings the last sermon in a series creates a unique temptation. I am reminded of the two men who were finalists for the senior rabbi position in a prestigious temple. Rabbi Hermann was a superb preacher. Rabbi Stearn was rather mediocre. Each had to preach before the Search Committee. On the eve of the interview they stayed in adjacent hotel rooms. As usual, Rabbi Stearn was sweating his sermon out when he heard something next door. Pressing his ear to the wall he heard Rabbi Hermann practicing his usual masterpiece. He listened carefully...and he took notes.

The next day the two met the committee. Rabbi Stearn was nervous and asked to preach first. The committee and Rabbi Hermann nodded yes. Rabbi Stearn then proceeded to preach, word for word, the sermon he heard through the wall. Rabbi Hermann didn't flinch. He even joined the committee offering gracious words for the fine sermon. Next it was Rabbi Hermann's turn. "What is scholarship?" he asked. "It's the most important attribute to the pursuit of fresh insight. What's more, the link between perceiving the truth and presenting it, is memory. Instead of confusing your minds with another sermon, I will demonstrate my scholarship by repeating, after but one hearing, the exact same message as Rabbi Stearn."

I could simply repeat what my preaching peers have shared over the past four Sundays, and it would be good because they all shared important insights about what it means to be Christ's living body, the Church. But instead, I will offer what I hope will be a meaningful contribution to the theme.

Did you know that at the University of Missouri they have something that belonged to Einstein? Not a secret theorem, not love letters. On a shelf in a jar is Einstein's brain. When he died they removed it to see if they could discover a physiological reason for his genius. After they dissected and analyzed it, they discovered what was different from Al's brain and ours. Nothing. The equipment was the same. The difference was what he did with it.

The heart of Christ. Was it different from ours? No. What distinguished was its employment. When the Bible speaks of the heart it means the source of intellect, emotion, and spiritual energies. With the heart we feel, we think, we unite with God and others. Biblically speaking, the heart is the center of our being. But the Bible doesn't say much about the heart of Christ, at least not directly. Jesus seemed more concerned with our hearts. "Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." "People honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." "Out of the heart comes evil thoughts, murder, adultery, slander."

In the words of the Shadow, "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" We do. The brilliant Scottish preacher, Alexander Whyte, had given one of his soul-stirring messages. Greeting worshippers at the door, a woman went overboard, grabbed his hand and kissed it profusely. "Oh, Dr. Whyte, you are such a wonderful person. I wish I could live just like you." Whyte then stepped back, lowered his head and said, "Mrs. Ried, if you could see in my heart, you would spit in my face." We know what we harbor in our hearts, don't we, which is why we must rely upon Jesus' heart. As God's heart beat within Jesus, Jesus' heart longs to beat within us.

Jesus' heart was like ours. It knew joy. It was heavy with sadness. It skipped a beat over a bold act of faithfulness. It was broken. But what was different was its depth, and the depth is revealed in our passage from John. In Chapter 13 Jesus washed the disciples' feet, shared a final meal, and prepared them for his departure. Then he gave a new commandment. "Love one another as I have loved you. If you do, people will know you belong to me." In case they missed it the first time he said it again in Chapter 15. "As the Father loved me, I have loved you; abide in my love. This is my commandment. Love one another as I have loved you."

He didn't say, "This is my teaching. This is my hope. This is my wish, or my recommendation." Someone said we have only two choices in life...love or perish. "This is my commandment," he said. "Love one another the way I have loved you...that's an order!" You can't be a Boy Scout and not help little old ladies across the street. You can't be in the Optimist Club and dwell on the negatives. You abide in him or not. If you do not love, then you are already dead. "Love one another as I have loved you." Here is the heart of the matter; the mark by which they will know we are Christians. The heart of Jesus is God's love. His feet took it to the people's needs. His hands touched their pain. His mouth proclaimed the good news of salvation. His eyes penetrated the soul. But it was the eternal heart of God's love which was the force driving his life and ministry.

To know Jesus; to have our hearts possessed by his, requires that one draw close to him. This isn't always easy. In my sermon this morning I said there is a part of us that wants to be near him and another part that fears being close. We yearn for him, yet we fear what it will cost us. We have heard enough to know that he is likely to send us to people and places we aren't exactly wild about. But another reason is because we don't think we are worthy. Our hearts grow faint at the thought that Christ's heart doesn't hold love for us.

Anthony DeMello saw a parallel in his life with Peter's denial of Jesus. Before the cock crew, he had done it. Peter sensed Jesus' gaze and wept bitterly. DeMello writes: "I had a fairly good relationship with the Lord. I would ask for things, converse with him, praise and thank him. But I always had the uncomfortable feeling he wanted me to look at him, and I wouldn't. I would talk, but look away. I was afraid I would see accusation for some sin. I thought I would find a demand there. One day I finally got the courage and looked. There was no accusation. No demand. The eyes just said, 'I love you.' And like Peter, I wept."

Did you ever dread seeing someone because you knew the worst was going to happen, only to be assaulted with kindness and forgiveness instead? Do you take Christ at his word that in his heart of hearts, he loves you...loves you without caution, regret, limit, or breaking point? You don't need to go far to find out. He's already within your heart, speaking softly and persistently for you to listen in prayer so that day by day he can reveal more of his heart and soften and heal the hardness and hurt of your own.

To know Christ's heart, we are called to come close, to trust in his love and listen in prayer. To abide in his heart also means we get close to each other. When he was young, Harry Golden couldn't understand why his father, an adamant atheist, went to synagogue every week. One day he asked, "Why?" His dad replied, "Why? There are lots of reasons for going to the synagogue on the Sabbath. Take my friend Silverstein, for instance. Silverstein goes to the synagogue to talk to God, and I go to the synagogue to talk to Silverstein."

Maybe this is why Jesus, in his infinite wisdom, before he left the disciples, told them to love each other. He made a body of them. Not everyone comes to church for the same reason. Some aren't so sure about things, so they come to be with those who are. Some aren't sure they have had an encounter with God, so they come to be with those who have intimacy with God. Is this in part why he wants us to be a society of friends who do his commandments by loving one another?

Think for a moment of the faithful friends who loved you and revealed Jesus' heart to you. I want you to do something. Say out loud as many of their names as come to mind. This is the choir of those Jesus is pleased to call friends. It gives us pause to consider what sort of church we are. Is it evident we are following the commandment? Are we helping each other listen to him who speaks in the depths of our hearts? Would it be evident to a visitor to any of our churches that we are more than a nice bunch of folks who get together because there is nothing better to do on a Sunday morning, or would they sense that here is something at the heart of what it means to be alive and I want it in my life?

You shall love one another like I've loved you. Well...are we? This is the litmus test of belonging to him. In 1st John we read, "God is love, and everyone who truly loves is a child of God and knows God." We can say we love him, but saying it doesn't make it so. There is only one way to know for sure.

A family therapist was watching a class of fourth graders in a balloon stomp. Each kid had a balloon tied to their leg and the object was to stomp the other's balloon while protecting their own. It was everyone for themselves, and the last one with a balloon intact was the winner. At the signal, the mayhem began. It was over in no time. There was one winner. Then a class of mentally handicapped children came in to play. Balloons were tied to their legs. The rules were explained, and the therapist wanted to spare them the pressure of the competitive brawl. They were confused, but eventually two of them got the idea that the balloons were to be stomped, but as the game went on it was evident the kids missed the spirit of it. They thought the point was to let your balloon be popped. A girl held hers down so a boy could pop it and he did the same for her. When the last balloon was gone, everyone cheered. They were all winners.

They turned competitiveness into cooperation. The therapist concluded, "Instead of feeling anxious fellow players, you knew they were there to help you along. In the first game you wouldn't learn love, in the second the kids fostered generosity, gentleness, and concern for one another." I would be hard pressed to come up with a better image of how we are to relate to each other as Christians, except to point to Jesus' old new commandment. "Love one another."

The heart of Christ. We know it when we draw close and listen to him in the depth of our hearts. We know it when we decide to draw close and love those who make up his body. The week before us will reveal the depths of Christ's heart. In the Catholic tradition there is a familiar picture of the Sacred Heart. Years ago a nun had a vision in which she saw Christ with his heart exposed. This led to the familiar picture of Christ with his heart "upon", not "within", his chest. The vision is taken to express the profound depth of Christ's love; the revealing of Christ's heart which reaches out to us in our sinful, helpless state.

During Holy Week we run headlong into Christ's greatest expression of himself. "Greater love has no one than this, that they lay down their lives for their friends." During World War II, prisoners of war were on work detail building a railroad under the eyes of their Japanese guards. The day's work had ended, the tools were counted. As the crew was about to be dismissed a guard said that a shovel was missing and he insisted it had been stolen. He stomped up and down the line of prisoners, screaming in broken English, demanding that the guilty one step forward to receive his punishment. No one moved. "Then all will die!" he shouted. He put the barrel of his rifle to one man's head, and cocked the bolt. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, a prisoner stepped forward and calmly said, "I did it."

The guard proceeded to kick and beat the prisoner with his fists. The man stood rigidly at attention, his face bloodied. He made no sound. His silence threw the guard into a rage. He grabbed his rifle by the barrel, lifted it above his head, and slammed the butt into the prisoner's skull. He fell dead, but the guard continued to kick him and only stopped when he was exhausted. The men picked up his body and marched back to the camp. When the tools were counted again, no shovel was missing.

"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." Seldom are we called to such a heroic act. We give our lives up in smaller installments. We die little bits at a time, making sacrifices for our children, being there for someone when you would rather be somewhere else, holding the hand of someone who suffers. But daily we live with the knowledge that Jesus' death places a burden upon us. Having given his life in love, we are not free to live any way we choose. Because he gave his life, it is our burden to live and love as best we can, as he did.

What is the difference between his heart and ours? The easy answer is to say, "There is no comparison." Then we wouldn't need to be so concerned. But that answer would be wrong. Henri Nouwen said, "Living with Jesus is a great adventure of love. When you admit Jesus to your heart, nothing is predictable, but everything becomes possible." He gave a commandment and has given us his heart to make it happen.

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