As I Loved You

John 13:34-35

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. (John 13:34-35)

In this scripture, the command to love one another is like a candle in this dark and brutal world, in danger of being blown out by current events. We are now in the fifth week of the Easter Season, knowing the good news that Jesus has conquered death and sin.

But we lose track of the joy by the wear and tear of daily duties and disappointments: the senseless war in Ukraine initiated by a megalomaniac tyrant, the homegrown 18-year old avowed ‘white supremacist anti-semite’ clothed in military combat gear who intentionally drove to Buffalo to kill ‘black’ people, forest fires in New Mexico destroying small villages, and the proposed removal of a woman’s right to control her own body. Our world is so fraught with events that disrupt our thoughts away from the promise of the Easter Season.

Today is not so different from the setting of this scripture.

We back up a little in time to when Jesus was with His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane after the Last Supper, and Judas slinked off to bring the authorities to seize Him. Jesus had been teaching his disciples how to continue without Him once He left the earth.

Jesus was talking to the disciples, foretelling his death and ascension. He had spent the last three years preaching and teaching and training His disciples to carry on His work. And then, on His last time together with them, He gave them (and us) a new commandment in John 13:34:

that you’re to love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.

Of all His teachings, this is the most important; it eclipses all the other words written in the Bible - one of the better-known lines of scriptures and one of the most challenging for us to practice.

Jesus said

“love one another”. . .

• not only those that you love

• or that love you

• or are family

• or are friends

• or are your neighbors.

Jesus commands us to love

EVERYONE!!!

This radical love rejects all those principles that people typically hold dear. Radical in that it is for all people on the earth:

• everyone we know,

• those we don’t know,

• those of different cultures and ethnicity,

• those we perceive as bad or evil,

• those who commit crimes against others,

• those whose religions we do not understand,

• those we view as ‘despicable’ or homeless or derelict,

• those of different political persuasions.

Jesus is commanding us to practice this kind of radical love. Notice the scripture says

“should love one another.”

Notice it doesn’t say ‘it would be nice’ or ‘I would like you to’ – it is a commandment. Words have meaning, ‘should’ is not optional.

This love Jesus talks about isn’t romantic, nor is it simply being nice, only loving those who love you back.

Remember, when Jesus washed his disciples’ feet, Judas was there and had his feet washed too. The man who would turn Him over to the authorities to be tried, found guilty, and crucified - He even showed his love for Judas as he washed HIS feet.

It is easy for us to love those close to us, but Jesus did more than love His friends – He loved HIS ENEMIES!!

He even forgave those who crucified Him!

And his death showed just how much God loved the world by dying for those who did not love him. This kind of love is difficult because it is self-sacrificing, requiring us to step out of ourselves and our own biases and prejudices. It means putting the good of the other first, even when it hurts or is uncomfortable.

There is a Celtic saying:

Jesus didn’t die for us so that we could continue treating people the way people treated Him.

How do we love as Jesus loved?

The love of Jesus is so strange, absent today, unknown or felt by people in this cruel world.

But that is the love that Jesus meant - love that leads to forgiveness.

Do we show that love wherever we are today?

Do we even show it to our family when there are fights?

Do we show it in our workplace?

Do we show it to the stranger?

Loving one another was not Jesus’ suggestion! It was His command!

So, we need to let that kind of love be the center of our lives.

But what is that love?

Radical love has good manners, does not take advantage of people, it’s not irritable. Radical love does not keep account of hurts. When we are hurt, we don’t hold that pain in our memory; we don’t dwell on it and let it fester.