Love and Resurrection

“Love and Resurrection”—June 5, 2019

"Therefore, my brothers and sisters, whom I love and long for, my joy and crown, stand firm in the Lord in this way, my beloved." [Philippians 4:1]

This might just be the greatest evidence of resurrection that we have: love.

I realize that this verse might not seem at all like a statement about the resurrection—whether Jesus’ or ours.  But in all honesty, the truth of Jesus' resurrection is the reason Paul is where he is when he writes these words--in a prison cell, chained to a Roman guard.  The news that Christ is alive is what keeps Paul grounded while he is in prison and very well staring the possibility of capital punishment. And it is what allows him to face each new day while he is separated from distant friends who clearly mean the world to him. The resurrection, and Pauls’ confident trust in a God who can raise the dead, these are the things that lead Paul to be in the circumstances where he found himself--in jail again, and writing to people whom he had come to love.

That's actually what this is all about. Paul has come to love these people, the Christians at Philippi, very dearly. He is not bashful or awkward about it. He just comes out and says it. It is a pure love, free of self-interest, and one that allows him really to delight in the things that are good for these friends of his in Philippi, and really to be crushed by the things that pain the Philippians.

But consider this: there was no real reason that Paul ever would have had to meet these people, much less come to love them, except for the Message of the Resurrection. Paul lived in a world where your average peasant (and let’s face it, most everybody in the Empire was a peasant or below on the great Roman totem pole) might not have ever traveled a hundred miles from the spot they were born. Paul wouldn’t have had reason to travel out all the way west to Philippi—a Roman colony somewhere around seven or eight hundred miles from his own hometown. He could have lived a quiet life in Tarsus, or Damascus, or back even further away from Philippi in Jerusalem. He might never have had an occasion to visit Philippi—except for the fact that he came as a Christian to bring the news of a crucified and risen savior. 

Without the resurrection--that is to say, without a risen, living Jesus knocking him off his high horse on the Damascus Road--Saul of Tarsus would never have ventured into the far-off city of Philippi, and he certainly wouldn't have shared a table with all the non-Jewish Roman citizens who lived there, much less become their dear friends.  Something must have happened.  Something must have mad a difference.

And in a word, that something was Easter.  

Easter—that is, the news of a Savior who went through the cross and out the other side of an empty grave—was the reason for Paul first meeting this people, all the way back to including that jailer who had once tortured him (see Acts 16). If Jesus had not risen from the dead, Paul would likely have had no reason, ever, to have gone to Philippi. So the people Paul knew and loved in Philippi are people he wouldn’t have even met if Jesus weren’t alive and hadn’t appeared to Paul.

The fact that Paul has not only met these people, people with whom he had very little else in common before Christ, but also that he has come to love these people, that is a sign in and of itself that something powerful and life-changing has happened to Paul. The fact that their lives are now tangled up in one another’s, and that he can call these dear friends of his “my joy and crown,” this is sure evidence that something has completely changed Paul’s course of life and taken him places he never would have guessed he would go to.

And the fact that now, even while they are separated by great distance, they remain friends who continue to miss one another, this, too, is a sign that Paul isn’t just a blow-into-town kind of guy who forgets the people the moment he gets on the next bus. Well, something must have happened in Paul’s life to turn him into this person we have met through his letter: someone who loves these people at Philippi very deeply, someone who has gone to distant places he never expected, someone who is willing to suffer in prison for the sake of his calling.

That something was the resurrection. Only a risen, living Christ can make sense of the change in Paul’s life situation. His love for these people, and their love for him, is evidence of Easter. Otherwise, he would never have had reason to meet them, much less give his heart to them.

The same is true for us. We are placed in these amazing communities of faith, we Christians, where people show up for us when our hearts are heavy, where people rejoice with us in times of joy. And among these people, we find that our lives are bound up with theirs, as we are all tangled up in the love of God. The funny thing is, these are not necessarily people you would have picked to be your friends otherwise. You know, sometimes we talk about fellow Christians in our congregation as “church family,” and that refers not only to the closeness we find in these communities, but also to the fact that you don’t get to choose your family. Here we are, people who might never have met otherwise, people who might not have expected to like one another, much less befriend one another, but the fact that we have is a sign that something wonderful and amazing has happened to us. We have been brought to this moment and this place because Jesus is alive, and someone told.

Today, how can you and I let our love of others be evidence to someone else that Jesus is alive?

Lord Jesus, let your resurrection show through in me today, by letting your love flow through me.