SERMON SERIES WEEK 5: LENT—A TIME FOR LOVE. LOVE DOES NOT DELIGHT IN EVIL, BUT REJOICES WITH THE TRUTH
We continue tonight with our Lenten series: Lent a time for love. When we think about God’s love, we can say that love discriminates. Now that sounds very confronting—after all, God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son for all people. God loves all people the same. Yet at another level, it is also true to say that God’s love discriminates. True love chooses what to—and what not to—take delight in.
In 1 Corinthians 13:6, Paul tells us that love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. This famous passage on love in 1 Corinthians 13 is so often associated with weddings. Yet when Paul first wrote this letter, it was not to a couple being married, but to the church at Corinth.
Corinth was a large, international metropolis, home to people from all kinds of different backgrounds. On the towering hill of the Acropolis stood the temple of Aphrodite, the goddess of love. At that temple there were one thousand priestesses who were sacred prostitutes. The hedonistic lifestyle of the city had infiltrated the church to such a degree it impacted on all areas of its life. The church was abusing their freedom in Christ, seeking the pleasures of the world at the temple of Aphrodite. There were divisions and quarrels, lawsuits among believers, disorder in worship, and corruption of the Lord’s Supper. The congregation had become so self-consumed with their own importance and spiritual prowess that their egos had become over-inflated, they had become “puffed up” and arrogant with their knowledge, they were boasting of their spiritual gifts, and competing with and ranking one another according to their perceived importance and prestige. At every level it was all about the great ‘me’.
God’s love is not a niceness that society often mistakes for love—an attitude which appears to accept, affirm, and endorse anything and everything. This is how the Corinthians were loving. They were not discriminating between what was God-pleasing—between what was true and good, and what was evil.
This is what Adam and Eve did when they first sinned. They didn’t rejoice in the truth, but delighted in evil, in two ways. The first was failing to hold dear the truth of God’s word. They went against God’s command. They wanted to be God’s place, judging what was good and evil; right and wrong.
The second was the fallout after they had sinned. Their conscience kicked in. The first thing they tried to do was to cover up and hide from God—as if anyone could ever do that, for all things are laid bare before the eyes of him to who we must give account (Hebrews 4:13). They tried to justify themselves by blaming each other, the devil and even God: “The woman you gave me—she made me do it!” “The devil deceived me!”
No—it had been their choice. It was on them. Now there was division and breakdown. God expelled them from the Garden. Things couldn’t be the same. Unholy people could not be in the presence of the holy God and live. When Adam and Eve sinned against God and were interested only in their own will and desires, not God’s, they brought sin into the world, and with it, death, making the whole human race prisoners of hell, under the power of Satan.
That sinful nature now expresses itself in all the self-indulgent ways the Corinthians sought to love themselves. One of the most destructive is not rejoicing in the truth, just like Adam and Eve of old. This happens in two ways. The first is the same as Adam and Eve did—to not delight in God’s word and order our lives by it; when we don’t gladly hear and learn God’s word, but instead chart our course by the so-called wisdom of the world. Jesus said: “If you love me, keep my commands” (John 14:15). Jesus uses ‘keep’ in the sense of ‘keeping dear’—‘to guard’, ‘protect’, ‘hold close’, ‘cling on to’. God’s word is the lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path for our daily journey in this dark world (Psalm 119:105).
The second way is also like Adam and Eve, when instead of being open, honest and upholding the truth of any given circumstance in daily life—especially in our lives together as God’s people—we try to cover things up and hide. Rejoicing in the truth does not just mean refraining from lies, but by upholding the truth of what happened as much as we can, in order to defend the reputations of others, by explaining our neighbours’ actions in the kindest way possible. Think of a judge in court who asks a witness: “Do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? So help you God.” To uphold the truth defends others and protects their reputation. To not uphold the truth is usually to protect our reputations at the expense of others. But the consequences of not upholding the truth are so damaging, because to do so creates an unjust situation, breaks trust in relationships, and ruins reputations.
Love does not rejoice in evil but rejoices with the truth. There is no middle ground. To not rejoice in the truth is actually to delight in evil.
Yet God did not delight in evil. He didn’t sit back when we sinned and separated ourselves from him. He wasn’t happy to leave humanity in bondage to sin, death, Satan and hell. Even there in the Garden of Eden, God promised a Saviour.
We hear of that Saviour in our Passion narrative tonight. At daybreak the council of the elders of the people, both the chief priests and the teachers of the law, met together, and Jesus was led before them. He is left by himself to uphold the truth: “If you are the Messiah,” they said, “tell us.”
Jesus answered, “If I tell you, you will not believe me, and if I asked you, you would not answer. But from now on, the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.”
They all asked, “Are you then the Son of God?”
He replied, “You say that I am.”
They said, “Why do we need any more testimony? We’ve heard it from his own lips” (Lk 22:66-71).
Then the whole assembly rose and led him off to Pilate. And they began to accuse him, saying, “We have found this man subverting our nation. He opposes payment of taxes to Caesar and claims to be Messiah, a king.” But Jesus didn’t oppose payment of taxes to Caesar! That’s a lie. Jesus had said: “Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar’s, and to God what belongs to God” (Luke 20:25).
Vehement accusations are levelled against Jesus. The people are looking for any reason to do away with him. Herod and his soldiers ridiculed and mocked Jesus. Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate. That day Herod and Pilate became friends—before this they had been enemies. That’s not rejoicing in the truth. It is a political coalition of evil. Why? What was the problem about Jesus?
Jesus rocked the boat too much. He wasn’t prepared to play by the rules of the religious leaders to maintain their exclusive institution built on human rules and expectations, which obscured God’s own commands. The ‘holier than thous’ thought they were holier than Jesus. He threatened their whole way of life.
But that was the very reason God sent his Son into the world: to disrupt our whole way of life. Jesus loved people too much to leave them behind in their spiritually blind and dead situation. He didn’t delight in evil, but called it out. What was his message? “The time has come, the kingdom of God is near. Repent, and believe the good news!” (Mark 1:15). Those in the synagogue at Nazareth were enraged and tried to throw him off of a cliff when he challenged their unbelief in him (Luke 4:16-30). When Jesus warned the Chief Priests and Pharisees that the Kingdom of God would be taken away from them for their failure to see him as the Christ whereas the tax collectors and prostitutes did, they looked for a way to arrest him (Matthew 21:28-46).
With every sermon Jesus was taking another step closer towards his end. Yet he had done nothing wrong. Even Pilate said he found no basis for a charge against Jesus. Wanting to release Jesus, he implored the crowd: “What crime has he committed?” But the demands and the shouts of the crowd, who delighted in evil, prevailed. And although innocent, Christ humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even death on a Cross.
Christ did not die for you because he had to. He could have escaped the judge and the soldiers. Nor did he give himself to pay for your sins because God the Father made him do it. He did it because he loves you.
This is true love. Without love Jesus’ sacrifice would have no meaning. But in love, Jesus’ death has reconciled you to God who loves you so much that he did not delight in your demise to evil, but sent his Son to suffer and die that you might have a new life in Christ. During this season of Lent, and to the empty tomb beyond, may we not delight in evil, but always rejoice in the truth of God’s word and come there to meet Jesus, and may we follow him in all we think, say and do, for he is the way the truth and the life forever. Amen.
