John 14: 15-21

Jesus says "If you love me keep my commandments"

The farewell discourses in St John's gospel of which this morning's gospel is just a part, has a central theme throughout, the idea of mutual indwelling. As Jesus says "On that day you will know that I am in my Father and you in me, and I in you." God and Christ dwell in us and we dwell in God and in Christ. But how has this indwelling come about? How is it that God dwells in me, and I may dwell in God? It is the outcome of Love. If you love me keep my commandments, says Jesus, but what are those commandments?

In the next chapter of John's gospel Jesus says "This is my commandment; Love one another as I have loved you." And if we put these two texts together what does it say - If you love me, love one another as I have loved you. Here is the indwelling of love, the mutuality of love between God and Christ and us, his creation. God's love for us, our love for God and our love for one another is the same love.

Of course the divine love is millions of times bigger but that divine love has been revealed to us in the human love of Jesus. In this mutuality of love there is a giving and a receiving, there is a flow and a counter-flow. Love should always be reciprocal. God in Christ always gives his love to us. Sadly we feel unable at times to give our love to him and to each other. We fail to respond to the mutuality of love. We are afraid, we are defensive, we lack commitment. It is perhaps, only as a young baby that we are fully open to receiving love and responding to it.

Marcus, who is baptized today and in whose baptism we will celebrate God dwelling in him and He dwelling in God, Marcus is at an age where he is open to receiving love. He responds to the world around him. He rejoices in peoples smiles. He enjoys the warmth of his parent's cuddles. He is so receptive to all that is happening around him. He is learning at a fast rate. He will probably never be so open to the giving and receiving of love as he is at this moment.

It is as we grow older that that openness to love begins to close down. We become cautious. We become aware of the dangers of love of both giving it and receiving it. Yet love is at the heart of creation. It is central to God and his purposes. Closing down on love, on self-giving is a denial of the reality of God.

St Antony of Egypt was a famous monk who spent many years in solitary confinement praying, meditating, dwelling in the presence of God. And when he emerged from his isolated cell, he said simply, "My life and my death are in my neighbour." He was surely saying, the giving and receiving of love is fundamental to our human existence. The glory of human nature is to depend on one another for everything and to be responsible for one another in everything. That is how we love one another. That is how we show God dwells in us and we dwell in God.

As our reading from the Acts of the Apostles says, 'For in him, (in God, in the One who is love) we live and move and have our Being'. We can not escape love, and yet we are sometimes frightened by love. There is something about giving of ourselves that is demanding and uncomfortable. We are not in control of love. If we offer love to another, he or she is given freedom to respond or not. We have to face uncertainty. We become vunerable. We feel exposed. Love is not always reciprocal. We can not be hurt by offering love. We place ourselves in a precarious situation. We take the risk of being rejected, yet Jesus commands us to love one another. He knows the risks; He has loved us and has been rejected. He has already suffered but he still offers us his love. His love of us is unwavering. Despite the vulnerability, the lack of control, the fear of rejection, Love one another is Jesus' command to us.

But there is also something else frightening about this unconditional love. There are no boundaries, there is no limit. We can never say we will only love so far. That would not be love. There is no limit to God's love for us and there can be no limit to our love for one another. That is quite a commitment to make.

If God dwells in us and we dwell in God, then we enter the vast ocean of his love where our love for one another has no boundaries.

In today's baptism Marcus becomes a child of God and that truth reminds us that we are all children of God, sons and daughters of the One who is love. We all enter that relationship of love, of mutual self-giving that is at the heart of our humanity under God. We need to give and to receive love, no matter how difficult and frightening that may be. Love one another is the commandment. Love one another says Jesus as I have loved you.