The testing of love is in experience
Easter 7, 1 June, 2003
Fr Neville Connell
Assistant Priest, St Peter's, Eastern Hill
Not so long ago I recorded the film 'Shadowlands' from Channel 10 – somewhat strange programming from the home of 'Big Brother', aberrant even. It tells, of course, of C.S.Lewis' meeting with Mrs Joy Gresham, and enthusiast for his books from the United States.
The film seemed to me to portray very well the interplay between the indirect, reserved world of Lewis' male Oxford, and Joy Gresham's direct and unreserved American way. Which gradually, and in a stilted way from Lewis' side, developed into affection, and then to love. Only to have the spell shattered by the discovery of the cancer in Joy's leg, which lead to her death. But there was an obviously joyful period of remission before the end.
Despite his fame as a Christian apologist – honest and unsentimental, the film makes quite clear that when his love was put to the test, Lewis faltered, struggled. As has been said, the testing of love is in experience.
Recent events in our country have tested many of us, as we watch the removal of our Governor-General reach its climax. Not many people come out of this affair with any credit.
If one has felt a real attachment to one side or the other, has felt a real animosity to a particular person involved, emotions have been, still are, very strong. The callousness of public life in Australia has been revealed in a stark, unimpressive way.
And yet, we who are active Christians who might feel, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to a good man. Or Archbishop Hollingworth himself, who may feel that he has not received due process or at least decent treatment. Or others, who may feel that abused children have been forgotten. If we are worshipping Christians, however we see this tragedy, all have the same duty – to love one another, to forgive one another, that there might be healing.
It is not fevered, hopeful talk about the mechanisms for the appointment of our Head of State that will heal our country, but loving forgiveness and healing.
This is the challenge for Archbishop Peter and for all of us. The testing of love is in experience, the refining of our love in the fire. The early Church, the very early Church knew this from the start as they coped with the death of Jesus and his rising to New Life. They were challenged to understand the meaning of Good Friday and Easter; of Jesus himself, and their own frailty, as in St Peter's struggle to follow Jesus, and Judas Iscariot's failure to persevere with Jesus, and then to betray Jesus.
In what way was the death and resurrection of Jesus love? What did this tell them about God? They knew about God's love as Jewish men and women, a love which forgave Israel, no matter how often they fell away and came back.
But this was different; they came to see that this time the Father's love was present in Jesus, as our Second Reading for today (1 John 4:11-16), tells us, "We ourselves saw and we testify that the Father sent his Son as saviour of the world."
The enormity of God the Father's love began to dawn on them; and the consequences. For the first time they who had never seen God the Father, had now had revealed to them the true nature of God, the true nature of love. This true nature of love is sacrifice.
If God has sacrificed himself in his Son for our weakness, our failings, our sins, then we must love as Jesus loved: sacrificially. This was the ministry to which St Matthias was called as an Apostle, as our First Reading for today (Acts 1:15-17,20-26) tells us, "We must therefore choose someone who has been with us right from the time when John was baptising until the day when he as taken up from us – and he can act with us as a witness to his resurrection."
A witness to love, not just any understanding of love, but love as revealed to us by Jesus on the Cross, the Christian mystery of God's response to pain and sin.
What held that infant Church together was the prayer of Jesus in the garden before his arrest, on the Cross, and now at the right hand of the Father, as we read in today's Gospel Reading, "Holy Father, keep those you have given me true to your name, so that they may be one like us." (John 17:11-19).
We Anglican Christians in Australia are facing much disapproval at present; our love is being tested by experience. But the love of Jesus will hold us together in the uncertainty of darkness and discouragement.
So that as Jesus offered himself for our forgiveness, we may find in his sacrifice the grace, the strength to forgive – forgive ourselves, to forgive others. "I have sent them into the world, and for their sake I consecrate myself so that they too may be consecrated in truth." (John 17:19)
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