+ In nomine Domini.  Amen.

Today is the Sixth Sunday of Easter, and there is one more Sunday before 49-day Season of Easter ends the night before Pentecost which this year is celebrated on May 11^th which is also Mother’s Day.  Also this coming Thursday, even though we will not have a Service, we mark the Ascension of our Lord on the 40^th day of the Easter Season.

Let’s review what we have said thus far in our Easter Sermon which has stretched now over these 6 weeks:

On the First Sunday of Easter (Easter Sunday) we heard the story from the Gospel According to Matthew of the rising of Jesus witnessed by Mary Magdalene and Mary the Mother of James.

On the Second Sunday of Easter we found ourselves in the Gospel According to John with the story of two appearances of Jesus to his followers, a week apart, in what is commonly known as the Story of Doubting Thomas.

We changed Gospels on the Third Sunday of Easter and read from the Gospel According to Luke about the story of the appearance of the risen Jesus to two companions as they were walking on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus.

Then on the Fourth Sunday of Easter we returned to the Gospel According to John and listened as Jesus talked with a group of religious leaders from the Pharisaic community explaining a symbolic blindness that was wrapped up in a well-intentioned but overbearing code of rules and directions, and offering that he [Jesus] was like the shepherd who lets the sheep in and out of the sheep-corral, and this is what God is like.

And last Sunday, the Fifth Sunday of Easter we found ourselves with Jesus and his followers at the Passover Meal where he gives words of comfort (Do not let your hearts be troubled …) and explains that the future is all in God’s hands and will always be in God’s hands and that those hands are present and visible in himself, in Jesus.

And this Sunday we find ourselves at the very conclusion of that meal where just before they leave the place where they have been eating and drinking the ritual meal, Jesus demands something.  He demands something and then promises something.

What does he demand of his followers?  It’s found in a conditional sentence as the story is told by the writer or writers of the Gospel According to John.  And it’s a particular kind of conditional sentence.  Most conditional sentences begin with the word “If”.  Following this beginning-word, the condition is then set forward with the conclusion or result following.

For example, a conditional sentence is something like this:

“If you finish all your vegetables, then you may have dessert.”  Or,

“If you don’t pay your Income Tax by April 15^th, you may have to pay a penalty.”  Or,

“If I set my alarm for 5.15 am and if I can find all my scattered notes and translations and if the computer is working correctly and if I can have my cup of Irish Breakfast Tea with cream (of course) and my bowl of Oatmeal with Golden Raisins (not Black Raisins) and if I can be disciplined enough not to let my mind stray too much into the tempting areas of Attention Deficit, then there is a very good chance that I will be able to finish a sermon before the first service on Sunday morning.”  Or, here’s one from the distant past of Lutheranism:

“If you can recite Luther’s explanation of the Third Part of the Apostles’ Creed from his Small Catechism by memory in front of the whole congregation, you might be Confirmed.”

Here is what Jesus says to his followers, these words coming right after the ending of last Sunday’s Gospel reading … here is Jesus to his followers:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

So there it is.  Very simple.  Along the way of our Easter Gospel Readings Jesus has told his followers a number of things:  I am alive, Do not be afraid, Peace be with you, Be filled with Spirit, Forgive one another, I am the gate to God’s presence in the world, Do not let your hearts be troubled, and now he tells us … “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

Suppose I ask you this morning, “How many of you love Jesus?”  I suspect all hands would be raised.  My hand too.  That is what we mean when we say we are followers of Jesus. 

So, here is Jesus saying, “If you love me …”  And our hands go up in the air, “Yes, that’s me, I do, I love you Jesus!”  But then comes the next part, and it is in the next part that the Gospel lives … or dies.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”  There are two things going on here as the writer or writers of this Gospel of John composed the sentence in Koiné Greek:

First, the word you is plural, not singular.  There is no individual piety here.  It is a group effort. 

And secondly, the verb is in the future tense, a kind of future tense that has the sense of a future that continues; in other words “… you will keep my commandments and you will not stop keeping my commandments.”

So, we’re not off the hook if we say, “Yep, I loved my neighbor last year, checked that one off the list, you bet I love Jesus.”

No, that’s not enough, and in fact saying that makes a mockery of what Jesus commands us to do and makes mocker of Jesus himself.

Followers of Jesus love Jesus and as they do those followers keep the commandments of Jesus without ceasing … and we should add that when followers of Jesus who love Jesus keep his commandments they do so in such a way that they help each other, they remind each other of what those commandments are, what shape they take, what they look like, what they sound like, what they feel like.

So now, what exactly are the commandments of Jesus? … they are summarized in his own words, “Love God, love your neighbor as yourself.”

When we do those two things, we who love Jesus, we are obeying his commandments.

And if we don’t … well, simply then we are not obeying his commandments.

If we love our neighbor, speak well of them, see to their needs, watch out for them, care for them, be in community with them, uphold them, pray for them, show compassion and understanding and inclusivity and tolerance and acceptance of them … then, yes, we are obeying the commandments of Jesus.

And if we don’t … if we persecute our neighbors, if we ignore them and neglect them, shun them, keep them away, refuse to understand them, show bigotry about them, go to war against them and the like … then we are not obeying the commandments of Jesus, nor can we say that we love God.

Two moments in history come to mind, one that will be remembered this Wednesday evening at Temple Beth Shalom, at a Service of Shoah (Remembrance), to which you and I are invited.  You see, it was not obedience to the commandments of Jesus that made Christians destroy 6 million and more Jews and others in Europe during World War II.

That was the last Century.  But a second moment comes to mind within our own century.  It was not obedience to the commandments of Jesus that allowed torture of captives to take place in Abu Ghraib in Iraq beginning in 2004.

What the Gospel is trying to tell us, is that this is serious business.  We come to the church to hear its message and we depart to live it out.  This is not just a holy pastime, it is the very centre of who we are and what we called to do and to be.

If you love me, then you will keep my commandments. It is our Gospel, it is what makes us a people of hope and love and peace in the world, and when we do that we are living out what we call the “Realm of God.”

Next Sunday this long sermon concludes with words from the 17^th Chapter of the gospel According to John.  We will hear Jesus pray for his followers right before he died. 

To be continued …