Monday, December 17, 2018

“I Love You.” “I know.”


Brad Sullivan
3 Advent, Year C
December 16, 2018
Emmanuel, Houston
Isaiah 40:1-11
Luke 1:26-38

“I Love You.”  “I know.”

There’s a scene in the movie, “The Empire Strikes Back” in which one of the heroes, Han Solo, is about to be taken away by the villainous, evil Empire, and just before he’s taken away, one of the other heroes, Princess Leia, says, “I love you.”  Han replies, “I know.”  They’d had this on again off again, flirtatious angry relationship, never fully admitting how they felt for each other.  Then, as everything is going downhill fast, Princess Leia makes sure Han knows how she feels about him, and Han replies with the perfect answer.  Rather than the expected, “I love you too,” Han sees how much Leia wants him to know that she loves him, and so he replies, “I know.”  In that, “I know” is of course heard, “I love you too,” loud and clear.

Now, aside from being a Star Wars nut and having been given a couple of Christmas coffee mugs yesterday with Leia on one and Han on the other that say, “I love Yule;” “I Noel,” why in the world would I bring this up?  I bring this up because it actually seems to fit our Gospel reading for today.

Through the angel Gabriel, God tells this young woman, Mary, that she is going to conceive a son in her womb, not by her fiancée, Joseph.  No, this son is going to be conceived within her by the Holy Spirit of God, and the child will be called Son of God, and he will be holy, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever.  God says to Mary, “I’m going to give you a son, conceived by me, and your son is going to be the anointed one, the Christ, the savior of humanity.”

“I love you,” God says to all of humanity through Mary, and Mary responds, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord.  Let it be with me according to your word.”   “I know,” Mary responds on behalf of humanity, with the accompanying, “I love you as well,” heard loud and clear.

“I love you,” is a familiar refrain of God to humanity throughout scripture.  In Isaiah, we hear God saying “I love you,” by giving Isaiah words of comfort for Israel, and  Isaiah responds with “I know,” by crying out God’s words.  “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.  Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

Comfort, God says, but we hear God’s cry of “I love you,” not only in his words of comfort, but also in the why, the why God’s words of comfort were spoken.  She has served her term, and her penalty is paid.  Israel has been punished, and even in that punishment, humanity is being told, “I love you” by God.  In the punishment, God is saying to Israel, “y’all are supposed to be my people, living as a light to the nations, and here you’ve been so lax in following my ways, that the rich among have been hoarding your wealth and keeping wages low for the poor, you’ve been so lax in your prayer and worship that you’ve ceased to gain any of the strength and love and kindness that comes from begin with me, and you’ve show yourselves not to really love one another and therefore not to really love me.  That’s not following in my way, and you can’t call yourselves my people when you act so contrary to my way.”

Even in that, God is saying, “I love you,” chastening to teach a still better way, and Isaiah, by crying out to the people, is responding on behalf of humanity, “I know.”  I understand, Isaiah says to God, that in times of judgment and in times of forgiveness, you are constantly saying, “I love you.” 

God is constantly saying, “I love you,” and not just to any one person or to any one people.  God’s “I love you” is for all of humanity.  That’s why God is our savior, why God has always been our savior. 

In Psalm 62:1 we hear, “For God alone my soul in silence waits, from him comes my salvation.”  Salvation in all its many forms comes from God, and God is the one thing alone for which our souls are longing, the one thing alone which is our salvation.  God is love, hope, truth, light.  God is the way for our lives to bring about community and healing in times of division, serenity in times of strife, love and compassion in times of loneliness, sorrow and repentance in times of harm, and friendship and celebration in times of joy.  

God is the constant, “I love you,” to humanity, and in becoming human, that constant “I love you” becomes one with humanity.  “I know,” Mary says.  “Thank you, God for the love you have for us, for all of us, and so ‘Here am I the servant of the Lord, let it be with me according to your word.’”

God’s constant, “I love you,” is all around us, in scripture and prayer, in kindness and compassion, even in chastening and calls for repentance, God is constantly crying out, “I love you.”  So how do we respond with “I know?”  With the words of the prayer of thanksgiving at the end of Morning Prayer, we respond to God, “I know,” “not only with our lips, but in our lives, by giving up our selves to your service, and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen

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