The Prince of Love
a sermon on John 14:15-21
by Rev. Randy L Quinn

A couple of years ago I was at a retreat for clergy.  At one point, we were in a large meeting room singing hymns, but there weren’t enough hymnals to go around.  I was sharing one with five other people – which meant I couldn’t see the music or the words.

For the most part, I was just “humming” along with the crowd.

But I heard a phrase in a song that I don’t think I’d ever heard before.  I had heard of Jesus as the “Prince of Peace,” but in this song, there was a reference to the “Prince of Love.”

Have any of you ever heard that phrase before?  “Prince of Peace” is a phrase we use during the season of Advent, but this was during the season of Easter.  I couldn’t think of a single scripture reference to the “Prince of Love,” so I moved closer to see what hymn we were singing.  I made a mental note and when I got back to a place where I had my own hymnal, I looked it up.

Imagine my surprise when I realized the phrase was referring to the nail prints in his hands!  The stanza I had heard spoke about those “prints of love” that he showed to Thomas and the other Disciples in the Upper Room.[1]

(Those poetic words written in 1739 by Charles Wesley have been echoing in my mind ever since that day.  It’s as if they were waiting for an appropriate time to be shared – and I decided that this is that time.)

The evidence of his love for us is seen in those nail prints.  Nail prints that continue to be seen after his death and resurrection, nail prints that are still longing to be seen by the world today.

You’ve all seen the little hand crafts that preschool children make.  They talk about the hand prints that dirty up our windows and make smudge marks on the mirrors.  Those prints of love fade over the years as the hands grow larger and the expressions of a child’s love changes.

Those small prints of love are given as a reminder of the love that continues in a different form in later years because we all long to see expressions of love.  We all have a need to know we are loved.

The world is longing to see God’s expression of love too, to see and know the “Prince of Love.”  But in today’s world, God’s love is best expressed in and through our hands, the hands of the people who are the church.

One pastor tells the story of a tourist in Damascus several years ago.  He watched as a bicyclist balanced a crate of oranges on his handlebars.  Suddenly, a porter appeared, so bent with a burden that he didn’t realize he was walking right into the path of the bicycle.

Smack!

Well, the oranges went rolling down the street; but the burden was also dropped, and a war of words broke out between the two men as a crowd gathered.  Not surprisingly, the bicyclist began to move toward the porter with a clenched fist.  A fight was about to erupt.

Suddenly a tattered little man slipped out from the crowd.  He took the raised fist in his hands and kissed it.

Just as quickly as it began, the cursing stopped.  The two men relaxed.  The crowd murmured approvingly, and everyone began picking up the oranges.

Meanwhile the tattered little man melted back into the crowd.[2]

The “Prince of Love” was seen in that simple kiss, don’t you think?

Our text for today takes place in the Upper Room the night before the nails are put into his hands and feet.  Jesus is gathered with his Disciples while his death looms large on the horizon.

And while his death was not anticipated by his disciples, and while there was no illness or disease that was visible, that last supper was very much like the last days and weeks families spend with loved ones in nursing homes and hospital rooms.  They gather to greet one another, to express their love for one another, to encourage one another.

For most of us, when there is an impending death, we spend those last hours watching and waiting.  And in the waiting, we find ourselves telling stories, typically stories about the one who is dying.  It is not necessarily a morbid sense of telling stories; it is more like what we witnessed in a world-wide scale last month as Pope John Paul II was on his death bed.  Countless stories were told of how his life had made a difference, endless tales of his smile and his compassion.

But the focus of the Last Supper is not on Jesus; rather it is on the Disciples.  The focus is on those who will become the church; it is on those of us who will continue the ministry of the “Prince of Love” after he is gone.

Jesus reminds them that for the past three years he has come alongside of them to show them how to love.  It is a love that was modeled for them again when that evening began as Jesus stooped down to wash their feet.  He was serving them; he was asking them to serve each another as he had served them.

His commandment is simple, yet profound:  “Love one another as I have loved you” (Jn. 13:34).

Today he says the same thing to us.  “Don’t let mine be the only ‘prints of love’.”  Put your hands out and serve one another.  Reach out to those in need.  Touch the untouchables and hug those the world discards as unlovable.  Maybe even kiss the fists of those ready to strike their enemy.

Jesus knows he will no longer be present, we will no longer see him; but his work, his ministry, his love must continue.  So he promises that the Holy Spirit will come alongside us and help us love, just as he had done.

“Another Counselor” is how the NIV translates it.  The Greek word is a multivalent word:  paraklete, a word that speaks about people who “come alongside” to assist us.

Ø      It could be a doctor or a nurse who comes alongside us when we are sick.

Ø      It could be a tutor who comes alongside us and helps us with our math.

Ø      It could be a lawyer who comes alongside us and helps defend us when we have been wronged.

Ø      It could be a friend who comes alongside us when we are lonely.

Ø      It could be the stranger in the crowd who stops a fight with a kiss.

The paraklete is that “other” Counselor who comes alongside us.  It is the same Holy Spirit that the world sees at work in us and among us when we love one another.

You probably remember that in both Hebrew and Greek, the word for spirit is the same word that is translated as breath and it is also the same word that is translated as wind.  The wind itself cannot be seen, but we have all seen its effects.  No one can see our breath, yet without it there is no life.

The Holy Spirit is like the wind which cannot be seen, the invisible breath that gives us life.  The paraklete comes alongside us and gives us the power to love, the power to heal, the power to serve.

And when the church is at work in the world, the world witnesses the work of the Holy Spirit – the breath of God blowing through us.

We are being asked to love, you and I.  We are being asked to serve, you and I.  We are being asked to come alongside those in need and show them our “prints of love.”

As we share in communion this morning, we are reminded once again of the Prince of Love whose love was so great that he gave his life for us.  As another poet has pointed out, it wasn’t nails that held him to the cross, it was love.

Today we receive that love.  And today we are called to share that love.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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[1]  The lines actually read “See! he lifts his hands above/See! he shows the prints of love,” and are from stanza 4 of Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise, by Charles Wesley (UMH # 312).

[2]  From a 1991 New York Times letter to the editor and retold in Lectionary Homiletics (May 2002), p. 6.