Based on the verses from The Gospel of John 3: 1-18, this was first written for and given at the Lynnville (IL) UMC on February 24, 2002. It was given a very Minor rewrite and given at the Wanda (IL) UMC on November 09, 2014, and another still-more-minor rewrite to use here, March 31, 2024, Easter Sunday of this year!

Where do I begin…To tell the story of how great a love can be

The great love story that is older than the sea

The simple truth about the love she brings to me

Where do I start

With her first hello…she gave new meaning to this empty world of mine

There’d never be another love, another time

She came into my life and made the living fine

She fills my heart

She fills my heart with very special things

With angels’ songs, with wild imaginings

She fills my soul with so much love

That anywhere I go I’m never lonely

With her along, who could be lonely?

I reach for her hand – it’s always there

How long does it last?

Can love be measured by the hours in a day?

I have no answers now but this much I can say

I know I’ll need her till the stars all burn away

And she’ll be there

       It must have been spring of 1971. Fifty-some years ago! When I first started to research for this message I realized that the story that I had in mind must have actually started some years before that. Years ago I wrote, in one of the articles that I did back then, about a girl that I had met at Camp High Hill, the camp near High Hill, MO that the Church of Christ used back then. I had noted in that article how a co-hort of mine from Hartford was competing with me for her attentions during that week. And if the truth be known she showed a definite preference to his company over mine. However, I had an advantage. The town in Missouri that she lived closest to was the same town that the farm my grandparents had bought and retired on was closest to. Of course, in those hills and hollers, ‘close’ is a relative term. It took about twenty minutes of hard driving to get to Iberia from grandpas’. The resort town of Osage Beach was at least another forty minutes from there, although at that time it was still in its’ infancy. Like trying to find ‘Bellefontaine’, you won’t find Iberia, Mo. on the map unless you realize that it is spelled IBERIA. But the address that I managed to get from Janet said Iberia, MO, so I also got a phone number. And when I went for my extended visit to the farm later that summer I managed to find out where their church was (Grandma went to the Baptist church in Iberia, but we were both Church-of-Christ) and got grandma to take me there that Sunday. From there I was able to find where she was at and wheedle in a visit.

       Over the course of that summers’ stay I worked very hard to convince her that I was a much better ‘man’ for her than my friend was. I think I even managed to get her parents to take us up to Osage Beach to see a movie. When we both met later that year at the annual Christmas Study, held at a church on the west side of St. Louis, we got along just fine…until Skip showed up. She still liked him better than me!

       Time moved on, I got my drivers license and my own car, and could go down whenever the urge struck me, if I had the money. Occasionally, if I was there on a Sunday, I would attend service at the little church and visit with her, but though I kept up a token interest, it was obvious that she just wasn’t interested in me. And I was moving on to other interests as well.

       Which brings us back to the spring of 1971. I had just broken up with a girl that I really thought that I was going to marry, and was just looking for something to do. On a weekend visit to the farm I decided to drive to Osage Beach. The theatre there was showing Love Story, starring Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal, so I stopped and bought my ticket.

       Some of you may have seen Love Story. For those of you who haven’t, I encourage you to rent or buy it sometime. Here’s how one critic describes it today…

One of the most popular tearjerkers ever, LOVE STORY tells the tale of Jenny, a poor college student from Rhode Island, and Oliver, a rich law student from Boston, who fall in love while attending college. Despite opposition to their relationship from Oliver’s wealthy father, the two get married. After graduation, Oliver takes a job at a prestigious legal firm in New York, and everything seems to be going well for the couple. However, tragedy strikes when Jenny is diagnosed with a fatal illness. As a result, Oliver must face a future without the woman he loves. This timeless film, based on Erich Segal’s novel, featured the famous tag line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.”

       At that time, at that age, the only kind of love that meant anything to me was the love between a man and a woman. Yet, even then, when they would advertise this movie as the greatest love story ever told, I couldn’t help but think that they were wrong…the greatest love story ever told is the one that I just read in these scriptures. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son…”

       The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia tells us that…

God loves the world. This is a wonderful truth when we realize what a world this is-a world of sin and corruption. This was a startling truth for Nicodemus to learn, who conceived of God as loving only the Jewish nation. To him, in his narrow exclusiveism, the announcement of the fact that God loved the whole world of men was startling. God loves the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. It is this world (that is called, in different places) “weak,” “ungodly,” “without strength”, “dead in trespasses and sins”, and unrighteous, that God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son in order to redeem it. The genesis of man’s salvation lies in the love and mercy of God.

       How do we accept that? How do we understand and accept a love that is almost incomprehensible to us? A lot of us have children. All of us have parents. Most of us accept the unconditional love that we have there. Many of us are or have been ‘in love’ with someone special as well. But these types of relationships are seldom perfect. Sometimes our love is tested…sometimes to the breaking point. So it is very difficult to acknowledge the perfect love that God has for His people. The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia adds…

       … love is more than mercy or compassion; it is active and identifies itself with its object. The love of the heavenly Father over the return of His wandering children is beautifully set forth in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Nor should the fact be overlooked that God loves not only the whole world, but each individual in it; it is a specific, as well as a general, love.

       God loves each one of us. It is that simple. It is an unconditional love. A love that we have trouble understanding because it is so difficult for us to love unconditionally. But it is there. It is real. And the proof is in what we commemorate on this Easter Sunday…the death of His son on the cross as a sacrifice for our sins, and His rising from the dead…the ultimate triumph!

       When I first pondered using these scriptures for a ‘lesson’, my first thought was how that had to truly be the ‘Greatest Love Story Ever Told’, which led me to remembering the movie, which led me to remembering the song from it. As I sat and watched the movie, all those years ago, I couldn’t help but try to put myself in Oliver’s place. True, my losses were on a different level than his, but they were just as real to me. And even after all of these years, each time I hear the song, which was written by Carl Sigman and Francis Lai, it still brings out feelings and memories of one kind or another. But this time, as I sang it in my head, I realized that the words of the song truly do apply to the greatest love story ever told. Listen to it again and think about the Easter story.

Where do I begin…To tell the story of how great a love can be

The great love story that is older than the sea

The simple truth about the love he brings to me

Where do I start

With his first hello…he gave new meaning to this empty world of mine

There’d never be another love, another time

He came into my life and made the living fine

He fills my heart

He fills my heart with very special things

With angels’ songs , with wild imaginings

He fills my soul with so much love

That anywhere I go I’m never lonely

With him along, who could be lonely

I reach for his hand – it’s always there

How long does it last

Can love be measured by the hours in a day

I have no answers now but this much I can say

I know I’ll need him till the stars all burn away

And he’ll be there