Jesus Loves You (3rd Sunday of Easter Year B)

Third Sunday of Easter (Year B)
26 April 2009 9:00 am
Morning Prayer for Primary Students
Sheng Kung Hui Tak Kin Shiu Keung Primary School, Hong Kong
(Representing the Cathedral of St. John the Evangelist, Hong Kong )
Readings: Used in this Simplified English Service: Proverbs 4:7; 1 Thess. 5:16-18

Jesus Loves You

God, place in us a desire to change—take away
our hearts of stone and give us hearts of flesh. Amen.

When my son Charlie was five years old, we lived in Beijing. One cold January morning near Spring Festival (Chinese New Year), we went to visit a Temple Festival with him. His older brothers and sisters didn’t want to go out in the cold. We went into the Temple after seeing the street festival. All the altars in front of the statues of the Buddha were loaded with fresh fruit, candies, and treats. We went from room to room, looking at each altar.

An old Buddhist monk in saffron robes watched us. He smiled at Charlie. Then as we were about to leave, he came up to us, went to one of the altars, and took a handful of candies. He gave them to Charlie with a big smile. “Fosa ai ni” he said. “Buddha loves you. Both Charlie and we were surprised. We knew you shouldn’t take anything from the altars since they were gifts to God. But here was one of the monks of the Temple who knew that the little foreign boy liked candy and wanted to tell him something about his faith. Charlie has always remembered that day.

Now I am not a Buddhist monk, but a Christian minister. So I can’t really tell you whether Buddha loves you, though I am pretty sure that the old monk was telling my son something true.


What I can tell you today is this—Jesus loves you.

One of our readings today (Prov. 4:7) told us to do good quickly to those who deserve it. Jesus told us to do good, and be kind not just to people who we think deserve it, but to everyone.

Once, he pointed to the sun, and to rain clouds, and said this, “God makes his wonderful sun shine on both good people and bad people alike. Both good people and bad people can feel its warmth, and go outside and enjoy it. God also sends his rain to both the good and the bad alike. It gives water to make the gardens and farm plants grow of both good people and bad people, so that everyone might have enough to eat. God gives good things to both good people and bad people. And that’s how we should be--kind and good to everyone, no matter what we think about them being good or bad.” (Matt. 5:45)

Another time, a great big building (called the Tower of Siloam) fell down and many people were killed. People came to Jesus and said, “Those people who died when the building fell down—they must have been really bad people. That’s why God made the building fall down to punish them, right?” (Luke 13:3-5)

But Jesus replied, “No. It’s not that way at all. Those poor people weren’t any worse than anybody else. God wasn’t punishing them. Bad things happen, and sometimes they happen to good people. We don’t know why. But we do know that God loves us, and that we should love other people.”

Jesus didn’t just teach us to love and be kind. He showed us the way to do it.

You know how sometimes at school kids make fun of some children? They might be different from other people in some way: smaller, not so pretty, not as skilled in sports, not as smart in homework, poorer, not wearing the right fashionable things or labels or maybe not as quick in talking. Or maybe people just think they are different, when in fact they aren’t. Sometimes bullies try to make these weaker people’s lives miserable.

Jesus spent a lot of his time with people like that—outcasts, those who other made fun of, those who were judged not good enough. He welcomed them and said they were God's 'special people, the ones closest to the God who loves all.

The powerful people of the day didn’t like this, and finally they killed Jesus because he wouldn’t shut up about being fair to and kind to others. Jesus died for us. As he taught, sometimes bad things happen to good people, and good things to bad. His death was unfair, and very painful. It was bad indeed. And he was not just good, but he was exactly what God set out to make when he created us people. And though Jesus knew he was going to suffer an unjust death, he did not give up talking about being fair and just to outcasts, and never turned from God in doubt about God's love for him and for all. God showed he was true and loving by raising Jesus from the dead.

If we had candies on this altar today I would take a handful from the pile and give each and every one of you a handful of candy and say “Jesus Loves You.”

Because he DOES love you. He loves us all.

In the name of God, Amen