Impossible Love
Jesus commands the impossible from us and then...
[This sermon was shared on Wednesday, March 26, 2025, during the midweek Lenten worship of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]
Luke 6:27-38
In tonight’s Bible lesson, Luke continues to share Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain. These words are mainly addressed, we know from earlier in Luke 6, to Jesus’ disciples, believers in Jesus like you and me.
The grammar of the Greek in which Luke writes shows us that Jesus is addressing you and me as individual believers. Jesus uses the second person personal pronoun throughout this part of His sermon. Unlike English, which has a single word for a person to address you, whether that you is one person or a million, Throughout today’s gospel lesson, Jesus doesn’t talk to an inexact “y’all.” He talks to you and me personally.
So, how do you react to these words addressed to you tonight?
I can tell you how I react.
I find Jesus’ words terrifying!
If the ethical commands that Jesus gives in this lesson are how I need to live in order to be part of God’s eternal kingdom, I am condemned to hell, for sure!
And I don’t like that it feels as though Jesus wants me to go around with a sign on my head, saying, “Exploit me. Abuse me. Take my money. Take my house.”
In fact, a literal translation of what Jesus says in verse 29 would be: “To the one taking away your outer clothes [think shirt, pants, skirt], give also your underwear.”
I like the idea of loving my enemy (sort of), as long as my enemy, the person who hates and disdains me, will love me too, as long as we can have an “I’ll scratch your back, if you’ll scratch mine” relationship.
But the commands Jesus gives to you (and me) as individual Christians are impossible for us!
If you agree with that, I’m glad! That means these commands, like all of God’s Law, are doing the job that God means for them to do.
The Law never saves. The Law condemns. The Law shows us our need of help beyond ourselves.
God’s Law is meant to show us our sinful natures. As the apostle Paul puts it in Romans 3:20: “...through the law we become conscious of our sin.”
In His Law, God says, “Love God and love neighbor. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” We like those directives in embroidery. We don’t like them in life.
We may be inclined to agree that those are fine sentiments. But when we read the fine print, as in Jesus’ words to us today, we MUST admit our inability, by the power of our own will, to live like that.
In fact, we may not even want to live like that.
We’re like Paul, who writes in Romans: “My inner being delights in the law of God. But I see a different law at work in my body—a law that fights against the law which my mind approves of. It makes me a prisoner to the law of sin which is at work in my body. What an unhappy man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is taking me to death?” (Romans 7:22-24, GNT)
That’s a good question. Who will rescue us? Who will save us?
The answer is the One Who gives these commands, Jesus.
It’s Jesus and only Jesus Who can save us from our unloving, sinful natures.
Jesus perfectly kept God’s command to love.
Jesus shows us that while we are sinners, God, Who is love, still loves us and wills to save all who daily turn to Him in helpless trust.
The One Who gave you the commands to “bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you” prayed from the cross, for you, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
The One Who commanded, “If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also…” refused to retaliate when, during His trial, “[people] spat in his face and struck him with their fists…[while others] slapped him…” (Matthew 26:67)
Jesus perfectly obeyed the commands of God and because of Jesus' perfect obedience and sacrificial death for us, God the Father has opened the gates of eternity to us.
This is why Jesus says a few chapters later in Luke’s gospel, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” (Luke 9:23)
In other words, Jesus covers the lovelessness and disobedience of sinners like you and me and through His death and resurrection and invites to daily take shelter in the repentance and saving faith in Him we receive through His Gospel Word, through the waters of Baptism, and in the meal we share at this table. He takes our sin and gives us His righteousness.
But before we talk about what else Jesus does in the lives of those who believe in Him, we must address the question all of us wonder about when confronted with His words today: Are we really meant–quite apart from our ability–to love the spouse who’s been abusive, the classmate who’s been a bully, the authority who’s misused his power, the businessperson who’s exploited us?
The short and unpopular answer is yes.
But this is why God has given, for our common benefit in this fallen world, governments, civil authorities, and parents. Without such authorities, Martin Luther observed, Christians would live in this world as “innocent lambs among ravenous wolves.”
And so, the abused wife should call the police, get out of danger, and get protection orders even as she loves her husband.
The bullied child should love his tormentor, and still go to his parents and principals and teachers.
The command to love doesn’t mean we’re to be doormats. And it doesn’t mean that wrongdoers aren’t to be held accountable. In fact, there are times when the most loving thing we can do for others is to hold them accountable for their harmful actions.
Loving does not necessarily mean liking someone. The characteristic word in the New Testament for describing God’s love is agapē. The characteristic word for the kind of love that likes or feels affection for someone is philos. There is an infinite difference between agapē and philos. Agapē loves in spite of. Philos loves because of. And so, because of the power of God working in us through Jesus, we can love someone in spite of being unhappy with them.
Charlie Shedd was an author and counselor. He and his wife Martha had a fierce argument one morning and left for work still furious with one another. Charlie went home at lunch and found a note in the kitchen. “Dear Charlie,” it said, “I hate you. Love, Martha.” That’s agapē. That’s what God makes possible in we who are always looking for what’s in it for us. We get it from God, Who always looks out, not for Himself, but for us.
Even the Church has authority from Jesus to hold its members accountable when they unrepentantly sin. That’s because God recognizes that while we who believe in Jesus Christ already live in God’s eternal kingdom, today we also live in a fallen world. And so, children need parents; schools need teachers and principals; communities and nations need law enforcement, armies, and those who enact laws for the common good.
Nonetheless, when we trust in the God we now know in Jesus Christ, God uses His Word to transform us from those indifferent to others to those who love even our enemies. The God we know in Jesus takes up residence in the lives of baptized believers and makes it possible for us to love even those who have hurt us.
There was a man in one of the churches I served who took an immediate dislike to me. I would hear from time to time things he was telling others about me. I let it go for a time until I heard something he had said about me, shared with eighty people. I picked up the phone and called him. “Why would you say something like that? You know it isn’t true.” And he said, “You’re right, pastor. I’m sorry. I’m a gossip.” Then he got in touch with everybody with whom he’d shared his gossip and told them it wasn’t true. I did that man’s funeral. When he died, I cried like a baby because I knew, sinner though he was–just like me, he trusted in Jesus.
So, friends, Jesus commands us to love all people, even our enemies. We know this is impossible, even when by the strange work of God’s Word in us, we may want to love all people.
This would leave us in despair...except that there is good news!
There is the Gospel!
God has acted to break the power of sin and lovelessness that had us in its grip from the moment we were conceived.
God has loved the unlovable and forgiven the unforgivable, including you and me.
By the power of His love, given on the cross, God makes sinners saints and sends His Holy Spirit to make us agents of His love for everyone.
We cannot resolve to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Nor can we fulfill any other of the commands Jesus gives to us tonight, no matter how good our intentions may be.
But baptized believers in Jesus, sinners made saints by God’s forgiving grace and mercy given to us on the cross, can follow Jesus and, as He lives in us, He makes the means by which His love reaches a whole needy world.
Keep following Jesus, friends, and He will fill you with His love each day.
Amen