The miracle of Christian love

[AI translation] It seems as if the apostle is listing here various rules of life, any one of which would suffice as the basis for a sermon, yet I am including this longer excerpt because it is actually about the same thing: the miracle of Christian love. It is what the apostle is detailing, defining, applying to different situations in life. In fact, the whole description becomes even more concrete if we replace the word 'love' with Jesus. Observe, thus: 'Love - that is, Jesus - is not hypocritical, it is afraid of evil, it insists on good. It loves the brother tenderly, surpassing him in reverence. Love - that is, Jesus - is not slow to strive, zealous in spirit, serving the Lord. Love - that is, Jesus - is joyful in hope, patient in war, persevering in supplication. Love - that is, Jesus - blesses those who pursue him, blesses and does not curse. Love - Jesus - rejoices with the rejoicing and weeps with the weeping. Love - that is, Jesus - does not boast, but conforms himself to the humble. Love - that is, Jesus - does not pay evil for evil to anyone, if possible, if it is in him, living in peace with all men. Love - that is, Jesus - does not take revenge for itself, but makes room for that wrath. He gives his enemy to eat when he is hungry, to drink when he is thirsty. By doing this he heaps living coals on his head. Love - that is, Jesus - is not overcome by evil, but overcomes evil with good.All at once, how different is this whole passage! Because it is not about love in general, but specifically about the love which Jesus brought to this earth and put into practice in his life, and which he entrusted to those who believe in him and want to follow him, as his most holy inheritance. So to us too! Only in this way does it make sense to talk about Him at all, always thinking of Jesus. Jesus who, through his Holy Spirit in us, wants to continue to love people. So I will try to give you some details of the main characteristics of this love described here!
Obviously it is not by chance that the first warning is that love should be without hypocrisy. It is not just a role that one plays when necessary. Not just a disguise that can be put on and taken off as the need arises. Not just a pose or an appearance that has nothing behind it. Not just politeness, good manners, which is a good thing to have. That is not love! Let us not confuse Christian love with good manners, with natural kindness! Do we think that there are people of a fortunate nature who find it easier to realise true love? No! True love can only be realized in us by Jesus! In any of us! True love is what we receive from God. So we do not produce it ourselves, but we let it flow through us. That is, we pass on what we have received from above, what has flowed into our hearts from the eternal source of love! This is the only love that is truly without hypocrisy.
Behold, it is also evident that this love, just as Jesus "shrinks from evil, clinging to good", as the apostle goes on to explain. So it is not sweetness and kindness, not a honeyed, all-conceding, all-veiling sentimentality, but sometimes tough love. If necessary, it dares to tell and to expose the evil in others. It often happens that a believing soul asks himself: 'Can I tell someone when I see what he is doing wrong, what he has done wrong, what he has done wrong? Or should I rather look away, not say anything, not hurt him?" Well, if the only way you can tell him is to hurt him, then don't tell him, because then you don't have that real love! More than once I have heard someone blurt out, "I'll tell him mine!" Well, don't tell him yours, because it's no use! Only tell the other person of his fault or sin if you can tell him not your own, but Christ's, because that is the only thing that will help him. That is, if you love the other person very much, with the fearful love in which that other person feels the Christian impulse in you and not the human one.
This is why the apostle adds to the fear of evil immediately, "hold fast to what is good". For even in the most wicked man who does evil, there is something good, something very good: that God loves him! So let us try to see in him the good that the redeeming blood of Jesus can mean for him. Whatever his faults, let us love him as the one for whom Jesus died on Calvary. It is the wonderful power of love to love the good into another person! Because true love is an educating power. That's what Jesus did with Zacchaeus, Mary of Magdala, the devil of Gadara. And with me, and with you again and again! Terrified of the evil in us, he loves the good in us!
Then there is another kind of service of Christian love. It is to nurse, to warm, to caress. Thus the apostle says: "with brotherly love, be tender towards one another". So not weak, but tender. Weakness is one thing and tenderness is another. There are wounded souls who can only be treated as tenderly as a sore wound. Wherever I touch it, it rises. For such a wound, there is really only one healing iris, tender love. The Christian love that emanates from a believer in him soothes and even heals all such pain. And there are some souls, almost frozen, for whom all talk is in vain, who can only be warmed by love. I know a widow in my congregation who is almost frozen in her own bitterness. I only ever saw her smile when a little Christian love radiated around her. But there are many waiting for that healing, warming tenderness of love all around us! Just take a little look around you. We are sure to find them!
Just don't tell me now that someone is waiting for it too! Never wait, but always give! This is precisely what the apostle warns us with his words, "In giving respect, be one before another". True love never conditions its activity on what it receives from the other, never reciprocates, but always anticipates the other's trust, goodwill and love. It does not expect anything from the other, not even gratitude. He does not consider whether the other is worthy of that love, but goes ahead of him, precedes him. He always loves before the other loves, even before the other has anything to do with him. A little like God loved us first. Is it not the very first awakening of faith in us to discover with astonishment: 'this is how God loves me'? Love must always begin with us, never with the other - and continue even if it is not reciprocated!
True Christian love remains love even towards the enemy! "Bless those who persecute you, bless and curse them not!" This can now truly only be done with Christian love! Human love cannot do this. The flame of Christian love simply cannot be extinguished. It is not harmed by a cold environment, nor by malice, nor by anger, nor by the blows of another human being. If a bottle of honey is broken, it will not spill bile, but honey. No matter how Jesus was hurt, cursed, mocked, beaten, He remained a love, a blessing. Bless him! Especially be and remain a blessing to those who by their behaviour towards you deserve it least of all. To bless someone, is not only to bless him, but to be God's blessing to him, to seek opportunities where I can be of use to him, how I can work for his happiness. Christian charity, when it hurts someone, is even more eager to seek what good can it do him in return? It is the only way in which a man can be rid of his enemy. So, by making him your friend, or at least, by making him your well-wisher!
So essential, so characteristic is this of Christian charity, that the apostle intensifies it still further, "Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, let him eat; if he thirst, let him drink: for if thou do this, thou shalt gather living coals upon his head." Christian vengeance is to persuade evil with good! There is a human law of vengeance: justice. It is exercised by secular authority to punish sins. "Vengeance is mine," says God, and this power is exercised by the Lord through the earthly authorities. This is dealt with separately by the apostle in the next section. Here he teaches what he calls "Christian vengeance": forgiveness! It is a satanic spirit that cannot be appeased until the offence is returned, preferably with a vengeance. The nature of the desire for revenge is that it cannot reflect, it is blind, it is only satisfied when the retaliation is more severe than the offence. This then creates in the other an even greater desire for revenge, so that the back and forth is never over. Evil grows like an avalanche.
There is only one way to stop it. By the one who begins to forgive. Give way to "that" anger, says the Word. So by no means to your flaring up anger. Never give way to it! Let your enemy pour out his wrath. Bear the hurt as if a stone were thrown into a basket of cotton. That cotton shall not be hurt or harmed. Forgiving love is such soft cotton wool that it will bear that angry stone without hurt. It doesn't kick it back, but it doesn't leave it, it gives it to God! God has reserved to himself the right of judgment. Leave it to Him. He will pay to each according to His justice! It is only for you to "overcome evil with good"! Fire cannot be quenched by fire, only increased. Even evil can only be rendered harmless by its opposite, good!
Yes, such would be true Christian love!
Beautiful words, one might say now. Indeed! But the problem is that they are just words. We have no idea how bad it is that true love is always just words. And that alone could give meaning to human coexistence! A pessimistic philosopher once said, in his bitter way, that a society of hedgehogs once decided to move closer together because they were too cold separately, and cuddled together to keep each other warm. They tried, but then their spines pricked each other so badly that they couldn't stand to be near each other. They broke up again, and preferred the cold to each other's thorns.
That is why there are so many lonely, cold souls in human society. One is afraid of each other's thorns! It hurts to be close, it prefers to withdraw, however much it longs for a little human warmth. Not even love, perhaps, but a kind word, a kindness, an encouraging look. These are the thorns that cause most trouble, from family life to national relations. Imagine if, for once, instead of the thorns that cause so much pain, we turned to the people around us, good friends, enemies, strangers and family, with a truly Christ-like warmth of love?
Jesus is now seeking as His followers those who can and will be "rejoicers in hope, patient in warfare, steadfast in supplication". That is, rejoicing in the hope that they are not wasting Christ's love around them in vain. They peacefully endure the warfare and struggle that this entails, and they are steadfast in their supplication, never tiring of asking again and again in prayer for the strength from above, so that they can truly love!
Amen
Date: 7 June 1970 (Dr. Sándor Joó's last sermon)