6th Sunday of Easter 2024
Texts: 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17
For thousands of years human beings have been seeking the secret to happiness, across all cultures and all times.
We have looked for it in utopia, self-fulfillment, political philosophies, the fountain of youth, drugs and alcohol, materialism and knowledge, success and power, lust and revenge, adventure, escapism, family, causes and movements. These things have not brought lasting happiness or contentment to anyone. Instead, they seem to have brought us widespread mental illness and hostility in our time.
Just as the body needs a structure of bones to be able to move, so does a person need another internal structure to be able to live well. This internal structure has already been put into us by God, whether or not we acknowledge it’s there. This structure is God’s design for us to live a good, holy life, flourishing.
These are God’s expectations for us. They are best and most clearly found in the 10 commandments, and later refined by Jesus himself as the summary of the law, love God and love one another.
The 10 commandments were given to us as an internal structure to naturally guide the way we live.The key to human happiness is found primarily and ultimately in our relationship with our creator, and this brings us joy, something deeper and more abiding than happiness.
Among some of his last teachings Jesus told the disciples, “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just a I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”
First, I would like to talk about this joy that Jesus describes.
The Christian’s joy is not the same things as happiness. Happiness can be experienced when most things in the world are right for us—when we are content, when we live in peace, when we are well, when we are safe and our material needs are met, when we are with family and friends, when we are satisfied with what we have and our accomplishments, satisfied with our efforts to improve the world. These things can be sources of happiness.
However, joy comes from abiding in Christ, we delight in his presence, and this joy can be experienced despite negative external circumstances, despite the things that trouble us. Joy is how the apostle Paul could describe being free even while in chains. Paul’s soul was free to love even those who wrongly imprisoned him. Joy is what many of the early Christian martyrs experienced, knowing they would soon be with God in the kingdom of heaven. We too have experienced joy on the day of the Resurrection, in our celebration of Easter.
What we have received from God through the Resurrection is grace. Joy comes from knowing we have received this grace. It is realizing that no matter who we are, or what we have done, or what we are currently experiencing, God knows us and loves us unconditionally. We can have a grace-filled life even now.
This is not to say we are immune from response to the troubles of the world. We do the best we can and trust God for the rest. This is how we are enabled to persist in joy. We do the best that is within each of us to influence the world for God’s purposes, for the good we can offer.
Secondly, from the lesson of today, many of us react to the use of the word ‘commandment’ and often associate it with someone else telling us what to do for their benefit. In our culture today we have been conditioned to reject commandments. This rejection has led to injustice, suffering, and even anarchy in many places.
Jesus is describing the pattern for the Christian believer’s life, that God’s commandments are good and life-giving. Among the readings for the past three weeks three different dimensions of this pattern have been given.
The first dimension of this pattern for a good, holy life is the believer’s relationship with God.
The Christian’s life is living in relationship with God through Christ. We are to abide in Christ and He in us. Jesus is the true vine bringing forth the salvation of the world. We are unable to bear good fruit without being attached to Him.
The second dimension of this pattern for a good, holy life is the believer’s relationship with each other.
The fruit of our relationship with God is seen in our love for one another. God’s own selfless love is poured into us, and we in turn are enabled to love selflessly. Jesus taught, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” This most often entails laying down one’s own priorities to love someone else, giving up something we desire for the sake of someone else. As Jesus gave himself to us, so we give ourself to one another, meaning we make them a priority in our lives.
The third dimension of this pattern for a good, holy life is the believer’s relationship with the world, that part of the world that is not the Body of Christ. We are to be in the world, but not of it. We do not belong to the world. We belong to God. We are called to engage the world for Christ, that all of Creation may receive salvation in His name.
This pattern for life is what Jesus is teaching the disciples, and us, in his last instructions to them. John wrote, “For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. John could say this from his own personal experience, even while exiled on the island of Patmos.
We are enabled by God himself to live as He commands. It is not by human effort alone that we live a good life, but by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit which God has given us.
The evidence of the coming of the Holy Spirit has been powerful in these last few weeks in the lessons from the Acts of the Apostles. In a few weeks, on the Day of Pentecost, we will once again celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit into the world, to us, in us. The Holy Spirit is here at St. Michael’s in a beautiful way. It can be seen in the way we love one another, and in the way we worship, and the joy we experience when we are here together. This is the fruit of lives lived according to the commandments of God. May we continued to be blessed by God’s presence with us. Amen.
