The Lutheran Hour
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"Jesus, I Don’t Love You"
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Text: Mark 9:38-40
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Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! Long ago the Savior said, “You must be with Me or you will be against Me.” Having said that, He carried our sins, died our death, and rose from the dead. Now, by the Holy Spirit’s power may we be given faith which shows we love Him Who first loved us. Lord, grant this faith to us all. Amen.
Most people I know have, as part of their job, certain obligations, duties, which they dislike. When I was in the parish, I also had a few responsibilities which I undertook without any degree of enthusiasm or eagerness. High on that short list was the counseling of couples who were obviously going through difficulties. Even though I use the word obviously, I generally hadn’t been given access to any hidden information, nor had I been allowed to read some top-secret private communications. Even so, the signs of a seemingly successful long-term marriage being on the rocks were pretty obvious to anyone who paid attention.
Nine times out of ten, the first sign of trouble revealed itself when, for no apparent reason, the wife began to lose a significant amount of weight. By that I mean this weight loss was not the result of deliberate dieting or illness. No, this pound shedding took place without any effort by these ladies. Along with the weight loss, these ladies looked uncommonly sad. Later I would find out it was worry which had stopped them from eating or sleeping. Almost unconsciously worry had sent their weight plummeting. Down past the pounds many had put on over the years, past the pounds which had never been shed after a baby’s birth. Many even managed to go past the weight they had struggled so hard to reach so they might fit into their wedding gowns.
After the weight loss became evident it usually wasn’t too long before the wife would just sort of stop by in an exploratory visit. Without sharing anything, she asked questions… questions like, “Did I counsel? Was I really confidential? Do I take appointments beyond my normal office hours?” Assurances were given and received. Within a day or two she would make an appointment for herself and her husband. She gave no clue as to the purpose of the meeting.
When the day for the counseling session came, the wife always entered the office first. Generally her face was filled with hope; his with a feeling of disgust, disdain, denial, and disbelief. Most men simply couldn’t believe that they had been talked into a visit where they were expected to share private things with another man. After the perfunctory greetings had been given I asked, “And how may I help?” The wife always answered. Usually she said something like, “Pastor I don’t know what’s wrong with our marriage. I don’t know how I can tell, but something is most definitely wrong with our relationship.”
When I asked about the things she was feeling or had observed, it opened a floodgate of pent up thoughts. She would say things like, “There was a time when every day was punctuated by her husband saying, “I love you.” Then she added it had been “weeks or months since she had heard those words.” The wife would talk about the dreams they had when they first were married. Back then they had talked about their future and their goals. Most of those dreams had been realized, but no future ambitions or aspirations were being explored. She would continue, “Once the family spent time together, but he seemed to be avoiding those opportunities. Yes, he had excuses, good, understandable excuses, but they added up to her husband would rather be somewhere, anywhere else other than with her and the kids.”
As often as not, there would be other things. He was spending long hours on the computer… he had taken, but not accounted for, significant sums of money from their savings account. Eventually the wife ran down and it was the husband’s turn. Almost always he denied the validity, the accuracy of what his wife had said. Then, somewhere along the way, the husband changed. Either his wife had worn him down, or he felt guilty, or he was tired of the battle. Whatever the reason, he changed and became honest. Quite often he became cruelly honest. He said she was fat, undesirable, unattractive, boring. He said that she and she alone had been responsible for driving him to do things he didn’t want to do.
I said I hated this part about being a minister. Now you know why. If you could have sat in my chair you would have seen a wife reel as she dealt with shock, sadness, disbelief, denial. He had attacked the fabric of their relationship and, with a few short sentences, left it in shreds. There was little consolation in knowing her fears had been realized and her conjectures proven right. It is sad to say, but some husbands, feeling a sort of liberation at their newfound honesty would add one final, killer statement, a marital coup de grâce. Some added, “I guess I just don’t love you anymore.” The really vengeful ones added, “I don’t know if I ever loved you.”
The wives had been given a devastating sucker punch and they reacted differently. Some went to pieces; others looked in their purse to see if they had a 12-gauge shotgun in there. Some sat in stunned silence and others went on the attack. It was when that first reaction was over; when things had settled down and the wife had pulled together the shreds of her dignity that progress was made, if ever progress would be made. I would love to tell you all of those marriages were saved. They weren’t. 70% would be a good guess. I take no credit for the saving. That recognition goes to where it belongs. It was the Holy Spirit Who brought contrition, forgiveness, and rebirth to broken, sinful hearts. Yes, the Holy Spirit saved many of those marriages and He showed those women were neither boring, predictable, or easily dismissed.
Now this Lutheran Hour audience may wonder why I have spent so much time speaking about counseling sessions from long ago. My answer is this: I wanted you to understand the impact of the words, I don’t love you. We live in a sinful world. It is a place in which too many souls tell the Lord Jesus, “I don’t love you.” If you think that is an overstatement, I would like you to come with me to the foot of the Redeemer’s cross. Yes, I would like you to observe the sinless Son of God Who gave up His life so humanity might be rescued and redeemed from sin, Satan, and eternal death. But first, I would like you to take a look at the crowd.
If you do, you might notice some obvious absences. For example, where were the many crippled and possessed whom Jesus had touched and healed? Where were the blind whose sight He had restored? Why were none of them there that day to see the greatness of God’s grace? Where were the lame whose legs had been restored? Could none of them be troubled to walk to this spot and offer their support to Him Who had restored them? Where were the lepers who had been made well and returned to their families healthy and whole? They, more than most, understood what it meant to be alone. Why were none of them there to offer they cared? As Jesus was dying, where were those whose loved ones He had called back from the grave and yanked from death’s cold grasp? Where were the thousands whose bodies He had fed with a few loaves and fishes; whose souls had feasted on His call to repentance and His assurance of sins forgiven? Many of these should have been in Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. If they had known what was happening to Jesus and they had chosen not to come, their absence said, “Jesus, I don’t love You.”
Where were Jesus’ closest followers, the disciples? Might Peter not have felt sorrow for having denied His Rabbi in the High Priest’s courtyard? Might the others not have been ashamed for their lack of loyalty? They could to go to the cross of Christ or they could protect their hides and stay hidden. You can almost hear the arguments: “Yes, He is our Rabbi, but what can we do at the cross? We can’t free Him and we can’t help Him. What good would it do? Our presence at the cross would only intensify the hatred of the priests. If we aren’t careful, pretty soon there will be ten more crosses alongside that of Jesus. If we could DO something we might risk it, but as things stand, there’s just no reason for us to make the trip to Calvary.” And so it was, as Jesus was dying to save them, His closest friends said, “We don’t love you. Not that much.”
Yes there were many who should have been at Jesus’ cross that day, but weren’t. Indeed, you might be forgiven if you were to wonder, “Was anybody there?” I can tell you there was. Look and you will see them. Jesus is dying to win forgiveness for them, but their hearts are not filled with repentance for past sins or remorse for having framed the Christ and orchestrating His death. Jesus is dying to rescue their lost souls and offer them heaven, but they are not there to offer up their thanks and praise for His sacrifice. They have not come to provide support or sympathy; they have come to smile, to smirk, and to sneer. Yes, go to Calvary and you will see the Priests, the Pharisees, the Sadducees. Their faces are bright with glee, their eyes are lit by a furious flame of hatred, their voices are strained as they shout insults and make mockery of the Son of God, the Sacrifice Who alone stands between them and eternal damnation. Look at them, listen and you will have no doubt, they don’t love Jesus. They never loved Him. Jesus was right: either you are for Him or against Him. There is no middle ground when you stand before the cross.
And, my friend, we are standing before that cross. When you look upon that Man hanging in the center, what is your reaction; what do you see? Do you, like the Romans at His feet, see nothing more than a legally condemned man dying a particularly cruel death? Is He merely one of the hundreds of thousands who were crucified by the Romans? When you look at Him, is your involvement confined to cringing at the pain He is enduring or feeling sympathy for an overwhelming thirst which is answered only when a sponge filled with cheap, sour wine is held to His lips? What are you thinking? Do you wonder if crucifixion really is the most painful way an individual can be executed or has mankind devised others which are even worse? Is it possible you play the role of a detached clinician, scientifically assessing the time which remains before Jesus’ strength gives out and He must breathe His last? If this is the extent of your involvement, you are saying, “Jesus, I don’t love you.”
Of course, you need not look at the cross at all. There are many ways of dealing with the great tragedy which played out in real time atop Jerusalem’s skull-shaped hilltop. On the day Jesus died, no doubt there would have been many who hurried by His cross without giving it a glance or making an inquiry as to the reason He was there. There are still many people who are too busy, too involved with their own affairs to pay attention to His sacrifice. The death of a carpenter’s Son so long ago has nothing to do with them. They are self-fulfilled, self-actualized, self-assured, and self-satisfied. If, and this is a big IF, if some kind of spiritual peace-making, fence-mending, or bridge-building needed to be done with God, they would take care of it themselves. Most certainly they wouldn’t need the assistance of a condemned Criminal. “No”, people say as they hurry by, “I don’t need a Savior.” Understood are the words: “Jesus, I don’t love you.”
When you look at the cross and the Christ Who is fulfilling God’s ancient commitment to send a Savior, do you feel comfortable with those who are laughing at His suffering and death? If you were to stand before His borrowed grave on resurrection Sunday and see the stone rolled away from the now-empty tomb, would you immediately invoke an ancient litany of explanations for what you have just seen? Would you say, “This is the wrong tomb?” or “The disciples stole His body away?” or “The body was moved by the gardener to protect his plantings”? Would you come up with all kinds of mental gyrations to avoid acknowledging that God’s Son Who gave up His life on Calvary’s cross, having completed the work given to Him, the work of redeeming us from sin, the devil, and death, has been raised from the dead and now offers salvation to all who are called to Him by the Gospel?
Before you answer, I encourage you to remember the words of Jesus: you are either for Him or against Him. There has never been any middle ground; there has never been a third path, there has never been another alternative. When you look at the cross and the empty tomb, either you must acknowledge that this Man was the perfect Son of God Who came to earth to fulfill the laws we have broken or He was not. Either He was born to carry and pay for all the sins committed by collective humanity or He was not. Either Jesus had successfully spent His days rejecting the temptations we find so tasty or He did not.
You are for Him or against Him. Are you ready to reject all the ancient accounts of the Resurrection and dismiss them as some spiritual sleight of hand which a sick, unnamed practical joker has played upon humanity? Are you ready to deny the transformation which came upon the cowardly disciples and remade them into evangelists who, by the Holy Spirit’s power, turned the world upside down? You must either be for Jesus or against Him. You must stand with Thomas and say “my Lord and my God”, or you must stand with skeptics and cynics who maintain, “Jesus is an opiate for the masses, an adult fairy-tale designed only to help those who are weak-minded, easily fooled, and whose over-active imaginations demand a spiritual crutch to help them deal with life.”
If this has been your position, may I urge you to reconsider? Don’t be so eager to say, “God, I don’t love You. Never did; never will.” Forget all the things Christians and non-Christians have told you and look for yourself. Look at the Gospel record. Read through those four short books; stand before the cross and the empty tomb and you will see the truth. Please, listen to the story of how God’s Son sacrificed Himself so that all who believe might be saved. Consider: what human imagination could create such a scenario? Would you send your child to die for an enemy? Impossible! Yet that is exactly what God has done for you. He told His Son to die so you might live. It is this truth, this fact for which the disciples were martyred… martyred in many and cruel ways. Still, when their moment came, they did not hesitate. They died rather than deny what they had seen and heard. Their faith in Jesus made it impossible for them to say, “Jesus, I don’t love You.” They couldn’t say it and you shouldn’t either. We all should love Him because He first has loved us.
Some of you remember a radio, movie, and television star, a comedian by the name of Jack Benny. Like many comedians, Jack was shy. So shy that when he saw an attractive lady at work, he couldn’t scrape up the courage to speak to her. Instead he went to the florist and anonymously sent her a red rose. The next day he did the same… and the next… and the next. Eventually the curious lady went to the florist and asked about the sender of the roses. The florist shared Jack’s name and soon the two were going out. Every day she continued to receive one red rose.
Jack and Mary eventually got engaged. That was a proper time to stop sending the roses, but they didn’t stop. Even on the honeymoon the red roses kept coming. It was a wonderful gesture, but one Mary was sure would end as they settled into life together. But the roses didn’t stop. Every day for more than 47 years Jack Benny’s wife received a single, red rose. Did I say 47 years? Not quite right. The day after Jack died, his wife got another flower. She thought it was a mistake and called the florist to let him know Jack had died. The florist replied, “You don’t understand. Before he died, Jack made all the arrangements. You’ll receive one red rose every day for the rest of your life.”
Beautiful story, isn’t it? The ladies are saying, “She was a lucky lady. She knew she was loved.” The guys are saying, “That cost a fortune.” Both of you are right. But I would like to take that story one step further and say, “Look at Jesus’ birth; His life; His suffering; His death and resurrection. It cost God a lot to say, “I love you.” Every day of your life the Lord gives you a gift. Not a rose which withers and fades, but a Savior Who forgives all the wrongs you have done. Every day You have a Savior Who promises to be by your side. Every day you are given a Savior Who offers His wisdom, His guidance, and His love. Every day you are given a Savior Who holds out His peace, His comfort, and an eternal home in heaven. Look carefully at what God has done and continues to do. Look carefully and you will never be able to say, “Jesus, I don’t love you.”
If you would like to know more about how God has shown His love to you, we would like to help. That is why we extend the invitation: won’t you please call us at The Lutheran Hour? Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Questions & Answers) for September 30, 2012
Topic: Pulpits and PoliticsANNOUNCER: Now, Pastor Ken Klaus answers questions about politics and pulpits. I’m Mark Eischer.
KLAUS: Hi, Mark.
ANNOUNCER: You may have noticed from all the TV ads, yard signs, and bumper stickers that the U.S. is holding a general election in just a few weeks.
KLAUS: No, I think I heard something about that. Yes.
ANNOUNCER: Today’s question touches on that issue of politics and the church. A listener writes, “Years ago I belonged to a church where the pastor was adamant that he would not preach about politics or social issues. He said the sermon was “God’s time;” he wasn’t going to squander it on matters which the Lord had entrusted to responsible citizens. Quite frankly, there were times I wished he had shared in a sermon how God felt about certain social issues.”
KLAUS: Fascinating beginning. The pulpit can be a bully platform and it seems he restricted using it to air his personal viewpoints on political matters.
ANNOUNCER: Our listener continues. “Since then, we have moved to another city and found a new church. This pastor is as different from the first as night is from day. His sermons center on national and local politics. There are times I think the pastor would love to throw his own hat into the political ring. My question: should the church and its pastors meddle in matters which are worldly?
KLAUS: Is this the point where I’m supposed to endorse my choice of political presidential candidates here?
ANNOUNCER: I don’t think that would be the wisest response we’ve ever made to a question.
KLAUS: Probably not. Let’s begin with some facts from Scripture. There are places in Scripture such as that found in the 13th chapter of Romans where the Lord reminds us that the governments we have are appointed by Him.
ANNOUNCER: Does that mean God is responsible for communism or Nazism? The Church had a rough time under those regimes.
KLAUS: The Lord has appointed various forms of government, that doesn’t mean, however, that He agrees with, condones, or supports abuses by those governments. We need to remember that Paul was writing during the times of the Roman emperors, many of whom were not favorably disposed toward Christianity. There are times when bad government is what people demand… such as when ancient Israel demanded God give them a king rather than relying upon the Lord as their leader. God gave them what they asked for-more as a judgment than a blessing. We also need to remember there are times when God uses government to bring people back to the place where He wants them to be.
ANNOUNCER: For example, what did He use the Roman government for?
KLAUS: I would say that pagan empire showed people the difference between the true religion of the Savior and those religions which are idolatrous. As Christians were martyred they showed they trusted in a living Christ, they didn’t fear death.
ANNOUNCER: One early Christian writer said the “blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.”
KLAUS: Exactly. His name was Tertullian.
ANNOUNCER: How about our listener’s question? What should a 21st-century pulpit do in regard to such matters? Should a pastor or priest remain silent or should they jump in where they think they should?
KLAUS: You do know anything I say here is going to get me into big trouble.
ANNOUNCER: Yes, I know that.
ANNOUNCER: The best answer I can give you is this. The church is always to be respectful and honor those who are in authority. That does not mean we have to agree with that government and we are free to use every legal means at our disposal to take our stand for the Lord and against those who would force us into a position of compromise.
ANNOUNCER: Can you give us an example of that?
KLAUS: I can. Take a look at what Peter said when he and the other disciples were brought before the same body which had orchestrated the death of Jesus. When those disciples were told to stop preaching Jesus’ resurrection, their reply is reasonable, rational, and respectful. They said, (and this is excerpted from Acts 5:29-32), “We must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree…we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”
ANNOUNCER: Could you sum this up for us in a sentence or two?
KLAUS: The church is always respectful of those who are in authority. But, when those in authority try to usurp or countermand the Lord, we are right in declaring what the Lord says about these matters. In that, we use the freedoms which are given to us, to every person who holds dual citizenship in the earthly kingdom of power and the saved kingdom of God’s grace.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Pastor Klaus. This has been a presentation of Lutheran Hour Ministries.
Music Selections for this program:
“A Mighty Fortress” arranged by Chris Bergmann. Used by permission.
“God the Father, Be Our Stay” arr. J.S. Bach. From Te Deum by the Seminary Kantorei (© 2000 Concordia Theological Seminary)
“Variations on ‘Holy God, We Praise Your Name'” arr. Jeffrey Blersch. From Resounding Alleluias by Jeffrey Blersch (© 2005 Jeffrey Blersch) Concordia Publishing House/SESAC