Missionaries: Power of Self-Sacrificing Love

The following are some comments related to this week's Sabbath School lesson, Lesson 7: The Apostle John.

Early on in this week's study, the Study Guide brings up the point that John and his brother James were nicknamed Sons of Thunder for some very good reasons. It appears that prior to Jesus' crucifixion, they were some of the most prominent of the Twelve in seeking power for themselves, and were most desirous in seeking to employ power (force) to get their way or to punish those who didn't see things their way.

What is interesting is that John's pre-conversion characteristics are noted by the other gospel writers. John himself makes very little mention of himself (and only very cryptically when he does) in his own gospel account. Is it because he wanted to hide his past, or was it because the love of Jesus was so much greater? I think it is the latter. I think that for John, his story was inconsequential when compared to Jesus' story.

When I look at the gospel account of John, the epistles, and (yes, even) Revelation, it is the self-sacrificing love of God that is at the center of all of them. The heart of the gospel account seems to be the Last Supper to the Crucifixion. Both are demonstrations of God's self-sacrificing love. In between the two events contain John's theology of God's love which explain the two events. The heart of the epistles appears to be (because God is love and He first loved us) the call for Christ's followers to reproduce God's self-sacrificing love in their own lives. The book of Revelation might be seen as the story of the victory of self-sacrificing love -- to choose the way of love is to choose life. According to John, the opposite of love is not hate, but force and coercion.

As I wrote in the previous blog post I spent a week at camp with kids ranging in age from 8 to 15. (There were no 16-year olds.) It was fascinating to observe some of them, particularly the boys (though there were some girls, also), trying to establish a pecking order. There is something about human nature that demands acquiring as much power as we are able. Are all the systems of the world basically a variant of this desire and process? Jesus' disciples certainly weren't immune to this.

The desire of the campers to wield power over one another, and even over counselors and staff, inevitably lead to trouble. In order to manage a large group and to keep discipline, the usual consequences were push-ups, extra chores, loss of privileges, or repeating what was required.

I spent the week trying to communicate to them, mostly with words, God's love and care. I don't know if it got through or not. I suspect the disciples at the beginning of the Last Supper were like many of the campers -- still only concerned about themselves and their place in the world.

It took demonstrations of self-sacrificing love for Jesus' words to sprout meaning to the disciples. I suspect the same is true of all of us. I think that as John stood at the foot of the cross, he finally began to understand what God's kind of power is about. The power of love is far stronger than power based on force because the power of love comes from free choice. Threats, fear, and force all lose their power when their opposite is freely chosen. John, as the sole witness to all the events surrounding the trial and crucifixion, must have seen this demonstrated.

The camp staff can force, to some extent, campers to obey. But force cannot change attitudes and hearts. It can even turn some campers more rebellious. Words may feed the intellect, but the principles may often remain dormant. What is needed is a demonstration. The challenge is to find ways to demonstrate self-sacrificing love. Jesus took 3-1/2 years with his disciples. Our camp was just a week long. I just hope that some of the campers saw or experienced something that made the way of love a bit more attractive than the way of force.

I think this is why the Apostle John, in all of his writings, emphasizes love. "God is love," he writes (1 John 4:8). "God is light and there is no darkness in him at all," he also writes (1 John 1:5). God's way is love -- to offer each person the freedom to choose between the way of love and the way of force. God will not and cannot threaten, force, or use fear to tilt the choice towards him. As disciples and as missionaries, Christians should only employ self-sacrificing love to demonstrate God's love to the world.

Love, seemingly without any power, when freely chosen becomes the most powerful force in the universe.