1 John 5:1-3 Living Bible (abridged)
If you believe that Jesus is the Christ—that he is God’s Son—God’s message of love to the world—then you are a child of God. And all who love a parent love their children too. So you can find out how much you love God’s children—your brothers and sisters in the Lord—by how much you love and listen to God. Loving God means doing what we are told to do, and really, that isn’t that hard at all-–simply love one another.
Before we get too deeply into what this reading tells us, I want to give a brief over-view of who and when. First John is the first of three letters traditionally attributed to John the Apostle. The three letters, the fourth gospel, and the book of Revelation, are jointly referred to as the Johannine writings.
It was accepted for hundreds of years that these were all written by the same person – John, Son of Zebedee, one of the original disciples. That is no longer the majority view, but it is believed that they all came out of the same Johannine community, as they share a language style and a similar point of view.
The three letters, however, have been, in recent years, accepted as having been written by one single author, but most likely not the Apostle John. They, along with a handful of others, such as the letters of James, Jude, and Peter are often referred to as the catholic letters (catholic here not referring to the Catholic church but used in the small-‘c’ sense of universal or general) because these letters were written to the Christian community at large, not addressed to a specific localized community as were Paul’s letters.
That was probably way more than you really wanted to hear on the Letters of John, but I do believe that when we are working from scripture, it is important to know who wrote it, and when, where, and why they wrote it—and maybe most important, to whom was it written? We can’t really understand scripture without at least some idea of these answers.
The various Johannine writings stand out from the other writings of their time because of their Christology. A “Low Christology”, such as in the synoptic Gospels, emphasizes Jesus’ humanity—he is “one of us” through whom God works and teaches. These writings tend to emphasize what Jesus said and what he did.
A “High Christology” on the other hand, emphasizes Jesus’ divine nature and his equal status with the Father. The various John writings tell a story of who Jesus was (and is)—not what he said and did. I’m not going into all that here today except as a reminder this is one of the reasons that this letter just feels different from other New Testament letters.
Another difference to be found in this first letter of John lies in the author’s insistent reminders that we are loved, and that we are here to love.
The reading with which we began today, from First John Chapter 5, is relatively simple and short – just 3 brief verses – yet the word love/loving appears seven times in this one short paragraph. Love is the central point of our relationship with God.
After I had almost finished putting this message together, I purely accidentally stumbled on a sermon I’d written back in 2018 that also covered First John. I ended up rewriting a large chunk of this message just to include what I was reminded of by that earlier sermon.
‘Love’ pops up a lot in all the “John” writings, whether the gospel or the three letters. As I mentioned earlier, they most likely all came from within the same community of believers so it’s not unusual that they focus on similar themes.
That community was apparently in the midst of some internal turmoil, because the writer is at pains to insist that the folks there are still obligated to love each other – turmoil or no turmoil. And the writer, whoever he or she is, continues to remind us we do not love because the people around us are all so loveable and agreeable – we love because God first loves us.
We are loved, and we don’t need to worry that God is going to become something God isn’t just because we have trouble sometimes believing in God's reality. We are loved and there is nothing we can do about it. Every sunset and moonrise, every newborn’s first smile, every flower that insists on growing up through a slab of concrete, every unexpected smile from a stranger, every sunrise, every rainbow – each one tells us that we are loved.
When we are loved, we are allowed to love others in return. Not just the ones who are already easy to love but the often broken, messy others who – like us – are the beloved creation of a God who is love.
Just remember the message of today’s reading because it applies to us as much as it did to those who first heard it hundreds of years ago:
We exist to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, so now we love.
Thanks be to God.
It was accepted for hundreds of years that these were all written by the same person – John, Son of Zebedee, one of the original disciples. That is no longer the majority view, but it is believed that they all came out of the same Johannine community, as they share a language style and a similar point of view.
The three letters, however, have been, in recent years, accepted as having been written by one single author, but most likely not the Apostle John. They, along with a handful of others, such as the letters of James, Jude, and Peter are often referred to as the catholic letters (catholic here not referring to the Catholic church but used in the small-‘c’ sense of universal or general) because these letters were written to the Christian community at large, not addressed to a specific localized community as were Paul’s letters.
That was probably way more than you really wanted to hear on the Letters of John, but I do believe that when we are working from scripture, it is important to know who wrote it, and when, where, and why they wrote it—and maybe most important, to whom was it written? We can’t really understand scripture without at least some idea of these answers.
The various Johannine writings stand out from the other writings of their time because of their Christology. A “Low Christology”, such as in the synoptic Gospels, emphasizes Jesus’ humanity—he is “one of us” through whom God works and teaches. These writings tend to emphasize what Jesus said and what he did.
A “High Christology” on the other hand, emphasizes Jesus’ divine nature and his equal status with the Father. The various John writings tell a story of who Jesus was (and is)—not what he said and did. I’m not going into all that here today except as a reminder this is one of the reasons that this letter just feels different from other New Testament letters.
Another difference to be found in this first letter of John lies in the author’s insistent reminders that we are loved, and that we are here to love.
The reading with which we began today, from First John Chapter 5, is relatively simple and short – just 3 brief verses – yet the word love/loving appears seven times in this one short paragraph. Love is the central point of our relationship with God.
After I had almost finished putting this message together, I purely accidentally stumbled on a sermon I’d written back in 2018 that also covered First John. I ended up rewriting a large chunk of this message just to include what I was reminded of by that earlier sermon.
‘Love’ pops up a lot in all the “John” writings, whether the gospel or the three letters. As I mentioned earlier, they most likely all came from within the same community of believers so it’s not unusual that they focus on similar themes.
That community was apparently in the midst of some internal turmoil, because the writer is at pains to insist that the folks there are still obligated to love each other – turmoil or no turmoil. And the writer, whoever he or she is, continues to remind us we do not love because the people around us are all so loveable and agreeable – we love because God first loves us.
- When we take up permanent residence in a life of love, we live in God and God lives in us. This way, love has the run of the house, becomes at home and mature in us, so that we’re free of worry.
We are loved, and we don’t need to worry that God is going to become something God isn’t just because we have trouble sometimes believing in God's reality. We are loved and there is nothing we can do about it. Every sunset and moonrise, every newborn’s first smile, every flower that insists on growing up through a slab of concrete, every unexpected smile from a stranger, every sunrise, every rainbow – each one tells us that we are loved.
When we are loved, we are allowed to love others in return. Not just the ones who are already easy to love but the often broken, messy others who – like us – are the beloved creation of a God who is love.
Just remember the message of today’s reading because it applies to us as much as it did to those who first heard it hundreds of years ago:
- Loving God means doing what we are told to do, and really, that isn’t that hard at all – just accept that you are loved, and then, love one another.
We exist to love—love and be loved. First we were loved, so now we love.
Thanks be to God.
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