I love Jesus
Sermon for Easter VI, 2023, delivered at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Louisville, KY Text: John 14:15-21 Every so often, I have heard someone declare with deep emotion that they love Jesus. And that is all that they say, leaving me hanging. It is hard for me to understand what they mean by loving Jesus, because I have understood love for someone to be between two physical people. How could you love someone who was no longer around, who you never met? And was this love romantic, or like friendship, or like someone you had married, or what, exactly? After hearing this for a while, I have sort of given up trying to understand what “I love Jesus” means, because I didn’t get it. Now, I would swoon over a picture of the beautiful actress Lauren Bacall, even though I had never been in her presence, but this is different. How could someone love Jesus? I began to understand this love when I read the Gospel passage we just heard this morning, and I began to understand when Jesus says “They w