"When You Say You Love Me"

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Several years ago, a pop song came out, entitled “When You Say You Love Me”. Over the course of several verses and a refrain, the singer muses about all the wonderful things that happen when his beloved says “I love you.” The world seems to stand still, he feels lighter than air, and all that sort of mushy stuff. Finally, the in last couplet of the song, the singer asks, “When you say you love me / Do you know how much I love you too?”

How wonderful love is, at least when you listen to love songs on the radio and read how the romantic poets wax on about all the joys and beauties and wonders of love. Love makes people do all sorts of funny things. Untold scores of people have been killed for the sake of love. Wars have been launched for the sake of love. The stories of the stupid things a boy will do for a girl litter the internet and the history books. And on the other hand, people will sacrifice themselves wholeheartedly for the sake of those they love.

But, to put a different spin on the song's question: when you say “I love you”, what does that mean? No doubt you have heard sermons and lectures, read books and articles, and seen all manner of movies talking about various sorts of love, and what those varieties of love entail. There is the love of God for His creation. The love of husband and wife for one another. The love of family members. The love of close friends and comrades. The love of a person for an ideal or an institution. One even hears “love” used to describe one's feelings about chocolate or ice cream or ponies. But when you say “I love you”, what does that mean?

When you say “I love you”, does it mean that you have warm and fuzzy feelings in regards to your target? For a great many in this world, love is something akin to what Walt Disney called “twitterpated”. Your head goes soft, your heart swells, and everything seems rosy and perfect. You walk around in a cloud of euphoria. Your beloved is the best person you've ever known, and no one can tell you differently. You ache when you are separated. And so on, and so on. This is the sort of love that is perpetually doe-eyed and dreamy. It feels wonderful, like the best kind of drug trip. You wish this love would last forever, and you feel sure it will.

Until you wake up and find out that that person who made you feel all twitchy and dreamy is a cheapskate who stiffed the waiter on your last date. Or a clothes-horse who has a shopping addiction and maxed-out credit cards. Or just wants to fool around. Or one of any number of other faults and vices which real people have in spades, but which the rosy glasses of infatuation hide so well. No one is perfect, despite what your hormones tell you.

So then what? The rose-colored glasses are off, and you see the warts and wrinkles and everything. Do you still love this person? This is where divorce enters the picture for so many. “I fell out of love with him” is the common refrain. That person you thought you knew turned out to be – wait for it – a sinner! A bloody, angry, broken, sinner – just like you. Your beloved, who set your heart alight, is not perfect, not holy, not the paragon of virtue. He is a sinner. And so are you. You cannot love a sinner and expect him not to sin.

When you say “I love you”, does it mean that you like a person until he or she becomes inconvenient to you? Love is easy when the person you say you love is beautiful, self-sufficient, and socially acceptable. Love is easy when you do not have to work at it. Love is grand when it looks like the portrayals in books and movies and none of the sad songs on the radio are talking about you.

But what about when it comes down to the unexpected child suddenly planted in the womb of an unprepared mother? Or what about the child formed precisely as God planned, complete with some life-altering condition? Or what about the parent whose body is otherwise healthy, but whose mind is fading away? Or what about the sibling who lies in an hospital bed, perched on the precipice between life and death?

When you say “I love you” to these, what does it mean? For many, love is merely an association that stands while it is convenient, planned-for, and productive. Those who are unwanted, unnecessary, and unprofitable are passed over. Some would even argue that they have a duty to die, so as not to use up the love and resources of the rest of us.

When you say, “I love you” to God, what does it mean? Does it mean that you think God is neat right now, when He is shining His grace upon you? Do you love God now, because He has forgiven your sins? Do you love God, because He makes you feel right, like things are going to be ok?

But what about when calamity strikes? Sooner or later, death will come knocking at your door. The grave will claim you, and it will claim your family and friends. Sickness and disease are a part of this earthly life. Accidents and natural disasters happen to the good and to the bad. When you look around you, and there is none to save you, then what? Is it still so easy to love God?

Or do you choose to look for your own salvation? The love of men is a powerful motivator. The love of money drives a great deal of this world. The love of self is the primal force behind most human behavior, even yours. Your lips say you love God, but your heart says otherwise.

Love is patient and kind, meek and mild. Loves bears, believes, and endures all things.

Love is all of these wonderful things, and none of the despicable things by which the ideal is adulterated, because love finds its definition, its beginning, and its end in God. The essence of the relationship between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is love. The love of God is perfect, in every aspect and every manifestation.

You have not love, and you cannot generate it or acquire it by your own reason or strength. Love is foreign to the sinful state of man, since the essence of sin is focus on oneself to the exclusion of all others, while the essence of love is focus on others to the exclusion of self.

However, God has great love toward you, because God is love, as St. John says. And greater love has no one than this, that He give up His perfect, all-fulfilling life for the sake of the wicked, the ungodly, the unloving and unloveable. Greater love has no one than that He die on the cross for you, for the forgiveness of your sins.

God loved the world in this way, that He sacrificed His only-begotten Son upon the cross in order that the One who is capable of all things might do what is necessary for you who are capable of nothing. The Father of all creation chose you above all else, and sacrificed all that He could give to make you His own and to give you everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness. Our Lord Jesus Christ loved you in this way, that He gave Himself into death to cancel the record of trespasses that stood against you.

And it does not stop there. Our Lord Christ loves you in this way yet today, that He graciously prepares His banquet table before you, and spreads before you the feast of heaven. He beckons you to eat and drink His very Body and Blood, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of sins. With this heavenly food, He gives you a sure and certain sign that His love for you is real and present in the flesh, just as surely as you taste and see bread and wine before you. This love is not a feeling, but a fleshly reality, that you may know that He loves you.

Love is indeed the many-splendored thing which St. Paul describes, because love is rooted in Christ Jesus our Lord. Because He has first loved you and poured out His love for you and into you, you know love. And because you know the love of God, you can repeat it back to Him, though only in part. And because you overflow with the love of God poured into you, you share that love with those with whom God has surrounded you.

Jesus has come as the King of all glory!

Heaven and earth, O declare His great pow'r,

Capturing hearts with the heavenly story;

Welcome Him now in this fast-fleeting hour!

Ponder His love! Take the crown He has for you!

Jesus has come! He, the King of all glory! (LSB 533.4)

In the Name of Jesus. Amen.