From the Song of Solomon in the Bible
Set me as a seal upon your heart as a seal upon your arm
The love is as strong as death
Passion fears as the grave
It's flashes are flashes of fire a raging flame
Many waters cannot quench love
Neither can floods drown it out
The late dr. Martin Luther King
once said and I quote we
Must discover the power of love
the redemptive power of love and when we do that
We will make of this old world a new world
Belov
Love is the only way
There's power in love
Don't underestimate it
Don't even over sentimentalize it
There's power power in love
If you don't believe me
Think about a time when you first fell in love
The whole world
Seemed to center around you and your beloved. Oh
this power
power in love
Not just in its romantic forms, but any form any shape of love
There's a certain sense in
Which when you are loved and you know it
when someone cares for you, and you know it
When you love and you show it
It actually feels right
There's something right about it
And there's a reason for it
The reason has to do with the source
we were made by a power of love and
Our lives were meant and are meant to be lived in that love. That's why we were we are here
Ultimately the source of love is God Himself the source of all of our lives
There's an old medieval poem that that says where true love is found God Himself is there
The New Testament says it this way beloved
Let us love one another
Because love is of God and those who love are
Born of God and know God those who do not love do not know God why for God is love
There's power in love
There's power in love to help and heal when nothing else can
There's power in love to lift up and livering nothing else will
There's power in love
To show us the way to live
Set me as a seal on your heart a
seal on your arm
for love
It's as strong as death
But but love is not only about a young couple
Now the power of love is demonstrated by the fact that we're all here
To young people fell in love and we all showed up
But but it's not just for and about a young couple who we rejoice with it's more than that
Jesus of Nazareth on one occasion was asked by a lawyer to sum up the essence of the teachings of Moses
And-and-and-and. He went back and reached back into the Hebrew Scriptures to Deuteronomy and Leviticus
And Jesus said you shall love the Lord your God with
All your heart all your soul all your mind and all your strength
This is the first and Great Commandment and the second is like it
Love your neighbor as yourself and then in Matthews version
He added he said on these two love of God and love of neighbor hang all the law all the prophets
Everything that Moses broke everything into holy prophets everything in the scriptures
Everything that God has been trying to tell the world. Love God
Love your neighbors and while you're at it love yourself
No
someone once said that Jesus began
the most revolutionary movement in all of human history a
movement grounded in the
unconditional love of God for the world and
a movement
Mandating
people to live that love and in so doing
To change not only their lives but the very life of the world itself
I'm talking about the power
Real power
Power to change the world
If you don't believe me
Well
There were small slaves in America's Antebellum self
who explained the dynamic power of love and why it has the power to transform they explained it this way they sang a
spiritual even in the midst of their captivity
It's one that says there is a balm in Gilead a healing balm something that can make things, right
There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sick soul. And one of the stanzas actually explains why they said if you cannot preach like Peter and
You cannot pray like all
You just tell the love of Jesus how he died to save us all oh, that's the balm in Gilead
This way of love it is the way of life
They got it. He died to save us all he didn't die for anything. He could get out of it
Jesus did not get an honorary Doctorate for dying
He didn't he wasn't getting anything out of it. He gave up his life
He sacrificed his life for the good of others for the good of the other for the well-being of the world for us
That's what is love is not selfish and self-centred love can be sacrificial
And in so doing
becomes redemptive
In that way of unselfish
Sacrificial
redemptive love
Changes lives
And it can change this world
If you don't believe me, just just stop and think for magic think and imagine
Well
He can imagine a world where love is the way
Imagine our homes and families when love is the way imagine
Neighborhoods and
Communities where love is the way it imagined?
governments and nations
Where love is the way?
imagine business and Commerce when love is the way
imagine this tired old world when love is is the way when love is the way
Unselfish sacrificial redemptive when love is the way then no child will go to bed hungry in this world ever again
When love is the way?
We will let justice roll down like a mighty stream and righteousness like an ever-flowing group
In love is the way poverty will become history
When love is the way the earth?
Will be a sanctuary
And love is the way
We will lay down our swords and shields down by the riverside
to study war no more
When love is the way
There's plenty good room
Buddy good room for all of God's children
Coz when love is the way
We actually treat each other
Well
Like we're actually family
When love is the way
We know that God is the source of us all and we are brothers and sisters
Children of God
Brothers and sisters
That's a new heaven a new earth a new world a new human family
And let me tell you something old Solomon was right in the Old Testament
That's fire
They are dishing on and with this I will sit down we got to get you all married
French Jesuit ard showdown
Was arguably one of the great minds great spirits of the 20th century
Jesuit Roman Catholic priest
scientists the scholar a
mystic in
Some of his writings. He said from his scientific background as well as his theological one some of his writings
He said as others have that the discovery or invention or harnessing of fire was one of the great one of the great
scientific and technological discoveries in all of human history
Fire to a great extent made human civilization possible
Fire made it possible to cook food and and and to provide
Sanitary ways of eating which reduced the spread of disease in its time
fire made it possible to to heat warm environment and thereby made human migration around the world a
possibility even into colder climates
Fire made it possible. There is no there was no Bronze Age without fire
No, Iron Age without fire. No Industrial Revolution
without fire the advances of science and technology are greatly
Dependent on the human ability and capacity to take fire and use it for human good
Anybody get here in a car today
an automobile
Knock your heads. If you did I'm guessing I know there were some carriages
But those of us who came on cars
Fire the controlled harnessed fire made that possible
I know that the Bible says I believe Jesus walked on the water
But I have to tell you I didn't walk across the Atlantic Ocean to get here
controlled fire in that plane got me here fire makes it possible for us to text and tweet an email and Instagram and and
Facebook and socially be dysfunctional with each other
Fire makes all of that possible and and de Chardin said fire one of the greatest
discoveries in all of human history and
he then went on to say that if humanity ever harnesses the energy of fire again, if
humanity ever captures the energy of love
It will be the second time in history
That we have discovered fire
Dr. King was right
We must discover love
The redemptive power of love and when we do that
We will make of this old world a new world
My brother my sister God, love you
God bless you
And may God hold us all in those Almighty hands of love
You