The Son of Consolation

May 8, 1994

A Brief Sketch of Barnabus

1 John 4:7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

The apostle, John, tradition tells us, was finally released from his exile on the Isle of Patmos, and lived to an extremely old age.

He is said to have been carried, very frail, to the services of worship where he would say from his pallet, "Little children, love one another!" I have always liked St. John. Long before I was ever a pastor I wanted to pattern my life and spirit after his.

The reason John is so attractive is that he wrote a lot about love. We feel more comfortable when we hear about the love of God than we do when we hear of His holiness. And yet the nearer we draw to the love of God the brighter it shines, and the more we are struck with a sense of holy wonder. God's love is an awesome thing to experience.

St. John says some very strong things in this text which I am using to introduce one of the truly loving persons of the Bible, Barnabus. John says (1) to truly love is to be born of God. Love is of the very essence of what it means to be Christian. Usually we accept that. But then John also says (2) the person who does NOT love not only is NOT born again, but he or she does not even KNOW God. Now THAT is strong language. John is saying, if I understand him correctly, that it doesn't take positive, evil acts to separate me from God— sins that I DO- - but he is clearly saying that something negative— the LACK of something— something I DO NOT DO— can prove I don't even know God at all.

John makes it clear that love is not an option, not the deluxe route to go after we are sure of heaven because we have said the right words at an altar somewhere. John says that if we do not love one another we are NOT Christians and we do NOT know God.

But, you say, there are brothers and sisters that simply are not all that easy to love. What are we to do?

Like forgiveness, which is closely related to Christian love, the kind of love John is writing about here is as much for the person who loves as it is for those who are the objects of both love and forgiveness. You can go to heaven if people don't love you, but you can not go to heaven if you don't love people! You can get to heaven if people do not forgive you. But you can't get there if you are unwilling to forgive. I didn't say that. Guess who did? Jesus said, "If you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will the heavenly Father forgive you your trespasses." (Matthew 6:15) So we find that forgiveness and love benefit most the one who forgives and loves. We should love if for no other reason than this fact: love transforms the one who learns to love like Jesus.

I. LOVE TRANSFORMS THE ONE WHO LOVES

Barnabus is one of the most kindly, attractive people in the Bible. Every time he is mentioned he is helping, lifting, or encouraging. How, do you suppose, Barnabus got that way?
Whenever we use the word "love," it is always necessary to give some kind of definition. Love, in one form or other, drives or motivates humankind. But much, no, most of the motivating love we see is curved around to look like greed (love of money) or lust (love of sensation apart from commitment) or racism (love of security) or selfishness (love of self to the exclusion of all else.) I am not now speaking about love that is centered in one's self, or even in one's ideas of what is good. We human beings are so mixed up that everything we do is complicated, along with the reasons why we do what we do.
This love of God, this "agapé" love I would speak about, is a love that is centered in a Higher Cause than self, that wills the good of another. It is more than filial love, that is centered in the human relationships and community, or to erotic love, which is based on the physical attraction God built into us, and which is good, but which easily degenerates into selfishness and worse. The love John is writing about, the love which characterized and transformed Barnabus is a God-given, God-centered love that risks believing in others, and that sometimes takes the chance that possibly the one loved might go wrong. The love Barnabus manifested forgives others, because it knows it has been forgiven. That kind of "agapé" love reflects the love of God to others. I need that kind of love. And so do you!

II. LOVE TRANSFORMS THE ONE WHO IS LOVED

Barnabus was probably responsible for more books of the Bible than anyone else! He had the gift of encouragement. When the church was desperate for money we see Barnabus (Acts: 4:37) selling property and laying the money at Peter's feet. He kept the wheels turning.
Then much later an older Barnabus sponsored and even championed a young man others thought was a failure. Paul said, "John Mark is not dependable, He is not to be trusted." [Translation: He is a flake!] But Barnabus stood by John Mark even when it meant looking like a rebel, breaking up the team. And Mark went on to write the oldest and most basic of the Gospels, many say with the help of Peter.
He never would have been there to write the gospel if Barnabus had let him be written off after he failed on Cyprus.
But if Barnabus never did anything else, the transforming power and grace of his influence on St. Paul would have made his entire life worthwhile. Thirteen books of the New Testament came from Paul's quill pen or stylus, but who do you suppose was responsible for bringing him into prominence in the church?
1. Saul of Tarsus was arrested by Christ on the Damascus Road (Acts 9:1-19) and a disciple named Ananias, of Damascus, was brave enough to pray with him and call him "brother." But when immediately the enemies of the church, Saul's former gang members, plotted to kill him as a traitor, and when Saul escaped Damascus and fled to Jerusalem, the Bible tells us, "he was trying to associate with the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple." (Acts 9:28) Enter Barnabus! The scripture tells us that Barnabus took Saul in tow, brought him to the apostles, believed in him, sponsored him. And what did the apostles do? The brothers sent him away to Tarsus where he continued in obscurity for some time.
  Possibly it was the three years when Paul spent time studying in the desert.
2. During this time the church enjoyed another brief respite from extreme persecution. They had been scattered after Stephen's death, but now after Saul's conversion there was another lull in the opposition, and the church continued to grow in numbers, now all over the Middle East and beyond. Barnabus was sent to Antioch (Acts 11:22) and while he was there he took a side trip to Tarsus especially to look up Saul. What Barnabus could not have known, nor the rest of the church, was that persecution was about to resume with a vengeance under Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:1-3 et al) But Barnabus found Saul, and asked him to join his gospel team, and encouraged him to get into missionary work. It was the beginning of the career of the world's greatest missionary.
3. Until this new persecution broke out, the Word has been proclaimed mostly to the Jews. God has made it clear that His grace in Christ is for all people. But no one could have anticipated that Barnabus, in his generous spirit of comfort and consolation, led by the Holy Spirit, had located and discovered and recruited the Church's great apostle to the Gentiles.
4. The pupil that Barnabus mentored soon left him behind, literally. They disagreed so sharply (Acts 15:36) that their group was broken up after one missionary journey. But even in this dispute my heart goes with Barnabus! He was sticking up for the underdog. And whatever Paul achieved in writing half the books in the New Testament, and defining a theology of grace, and in preaching from Asia to Spain, Barnabus had a share because of the love of a humble man who himself had been transformed, and who in turn dared to risk loving another with that same transforming love of God.

III. THE TRANSFORMING POWER OF GOD'S LOVE

God's love enables us to love others. Believe me, it isn't always easy to love as God would have us to love. God's love may be unconditional, but it is not blind to sin, wrong, injustice, or the need for correction. Barnabus did not hesitate to tell Paul when he believed Paul was too harsh. Paul did not hesitate to get in Peter's face and tell him he was acting like a hypocrite (see Galatians 2). But before we can oppose people we had better be solemn sure that we love them.
God's love doesn't make us less human; it does help us incarnate what we believe. It (amazingly) does enable us to give up all bitterness and malice and anger and wrath and clamor. It does (amazingly) enable us to say with our Lord, "Father, forgive them!"
God's love helps us to accept the transforming grace of God for ourselves.
We are changed when we understand how much Jesus loves us. That change is sanctification. We are transformed, and we are being transformed. Not one of us is absolutely like Jesus Christ, nor will we ever become God. But we are being transformed even now. And when the time comes that we see Jesus face to face we shall be glorified until even our bodies will be changed. We will be able to exist, to live in His Presence with exceeding great joy!
Jesus loves YOU! Jesus has chosen YOU! If you will accept that fact humbly and simply, God will go to work on your very being. You will be changed the moment you can say, by the help of the Spirit, "Jesus is LORD!" And then that transformation will continue if you will allow the love of God to penetrate every corner of your life and living.

COMMUNION INVITATION

You have not chosen me. I have chosen you. Be a Barnabus! We cannot all be Pauls or Peters. We can all let God's love help us forgive. (Is there one soul on the face of God's earth you cannot forgive? Do you really know God?)