I Know I Am… Loved

This mother’s day, I want to show you a story that we rarely cover on joyous days like this. But I think it is especially important that we look at this story because there’s a twofold significance that would otherwise go forgotten and unnoticed if we didn’t stop and pause this morning. We have two complex ideas to discuss and so we need to go right into our Bibles this morning. I’ve divided our time into two acts, so make sure you allot enough space on your notes for that. Act of Love, Part 1. Let’s go to John 19:16. ¹⁶ Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified. So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. ¹⁷ Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). ¹⁸ There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle. ¹⁹ Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews.²⁰ Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. ²¹ The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.” ²² Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.” I want you to recognize two things here. The first thing you need to recognize is the fact that the government acknowledged who Jesus was and put it into writing. See, verse 19 says “Jesus, the Jesus who is from Nazareth, is the King of the Jews. He was proclaimed to be the king. The Romans admitted it. Jesus’ people, who he was king over, did not admit it. I want you to recognize that Jesus died as the proclaimed king. This is very important to us in just a second. But for just a moment I want you think about the significance of the king of a people being executed for taking care of his people. Think of how disgusting that idea is. He healed his people from blindness, lameness, sickness, death, and hunger—then he got punished for doing those things because there were people who did not want people to be healed and satisfied. This tells us two things about the nature of humans—first, that they would rather suffer so they don’t have to admit their shortcomings; secondly, they can’t allow somebody else to love them the way they need to be loved. Is this not true? Just look at how Jesus, the King of the Jews, was killed. He was killed by way of execution. He was accused of being the King of the Jews, (aka for taking care of his people). Here’s the second thing you need to see in this passage: Jesus never asked somebody else to do what he couldn’t do himself. He didn’t have somebody else carry the object that would subject him to death. He carried it. This is an act of love. An act of love cherishes people at cost to one’s self. Look at verse 17. It says “carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the skull…”  Do you really think Jesus would have carried a large, blunt, heavy object outside of the center of a city into the side of a highway, where skulls can be found of random dead people if he did not truly love the people he was about to die for? Sometimes it’s easy to say something but it’s not easy to really believe it. Saying Jesus Loves Me is one of those things. Everyone say, “Jesus loves me.” (Pause as they repeat it.) You may have heard that since you were really little, but do you ever really stop to check inside your heart to see if you really believe it? You may say you know God loves you. But knowing can just mean stuff in your brain—like multiplication facts or science vocabulary or how to tie your shoe. That’s not the kind of knowing I hope each one of you goes home with today. I hope each one of you know with all of your heart that Jesus loves you. This first act is proof of that love. But maybe that’s not proof enough. Let’s keep reading, verse 23. ²³ When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. ²⁴ “Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.” This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, “They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment.” So this is what the soldiers did. John writes here that the guards ripped up Jesus’ clothes. He implies here that Jesus, knowing what he knows so well about the prophets, knew that the very people who would be crucifying him would try to raffle off his underwear. Jesus participated willingly at the cost of his dignity, in an act so defile and beneath a king, that, you can only conclude that the act was a force of love. That is to say that nobody in their right mind would do this if he or she had a choice unless they really loved and/or cared for and about who they were sparing from the same fate. I know a lot of us can’t imagine a time like this, but I remember a time when I was younger when my family was so poor, that there was literally nothing to eat. You could open the refrigerator and there was nothing in there except the starving cockroaches looking for food that should have been there. My family of four had one can of beef ravioli between us. I’m not talking about the big can of ravioli that comes from BJ’s or Costco either. I’m talking about the can of ravioli that only feeds one person in a soup bowl. My mom didn’t eat that night—she chose not to eat, saying that she was full, knowing quite well that she just worked 16 hours and hadn’t eaten or drank anything all day long. My brother and I split half of that can and ate it cold because we didn’t have enough money for electricity and the electric company turned off our electricity. The significance was that she was willing to do it—knowing that it would destroy her, she watched her kids eat… At a greater level and larger scale, Jesus knew he was going to die in one of the most dehumanizing ways possible, and he carried the object that would subject him to death because he looked at the people who deserved it with love. We all have to know that we are loved. I want us to say this together: I KNOW I AM LOVED. Jesus definitely loves you. Your parents love you. Your Bible Study teachers love you. When you walk away from church, you have to remind yourself that despite everything and anything, you are loved. You need to know that, especially when it doesn’t seem like it. Act of Love, Part 2. We see a great act of love in this first act where Jesus does for other people what they don’t deserve from him—he does so knowing the consequences, and in the name of love. But now there is a second act of love, which a lot of people miss because it is subtle. Let’s go to verse 25. ²⁵ Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” ²⁷ and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home. I want you to count how many people were there in this last scene John describes. There were five people. Jesus sees his mom and he tells the “disciple that he loves” that this is your mother. Here’s the funny thing about all of this. He didn’t have to say that—somebody else was there that could have taken care of his mother. Mary the wife of Clopas was also there, so was Jesus’ aunt. I want to say Clopas was Jesus’ brother James, but it was more likely that Mary the wife of Clopas was the mother of James, son of Zebedee. Regardless, the point here is that Jesus doesn’t abandon the people he loves. He puts the people whom he loves in the care of other people that he loves. Do you see this interesting thing that Jesus does? He knows that people will not always feel loved even though they are. There were four other people there with Jesus whom Jesus could have told to take care of his mom. But he chose somebody who is described to be the disciple that Jesus loved to distinctly and explicitly take care of the mother he loves. We have a charge, especially if we are Jesus’ disciples, whom he loves to take care of people whom Jesus loves. It’s not enough that Jesus loves us. It is not enough to know that we are loved. It is equally important that because we are loved that we love people whom Jesus loves. I think this is so beautiful because Jesus is inviting us into the process of loving that requires sacrifice greater than we are sometimes prepared to give. Jesus wants us to love people who he brings around us. That is what he is calling us to do. How have you done that? Are you doing that? What are you sacrificing for people to love them like Jesus loves them? This mother’s day, I think you need to show people who are around you that you love them because Jesus loves them. That includes people who aren’t your moms. There are so many people at this church who need to know you love them. Are you showing them that you love them? Are you bringing them into your figurative house to take care of them? Let’s look at our memory verse for this week. It comes from 1^st John 4:10.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. If Jesus can willingly die for us. Can we not willingly take care of somebody in the name of love at cost to us? Some of us are better at it than others. Some of us experience this type of love and resentfully deny it. It is time to understand and change that perspective—you and I never deserved it, nor will we ever deserve it. But it doesn’t change the fact that Jesus gives us. It doesn’t change the fact that we need to give it even when it pains us to give it away like that. Let’s pray.