Jesus says, “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) The ‘one another’ are the people gathered around Jesus, the members of the Christian community.
It is a strange saying because the command to love is not a new command.
It is there in the Old Testament
In Leviticus 19:18, the people of God are commanded to love their neighbour, the member of their community: “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD”.
It is the command to love their neighbour as if they were one of your own.
So how can Jesus say that this is a new command?
Some say that up to now, in John’s gospel, the great command has been to believe, to put our trust in Jesus as the Son of God. And now Jesus says that he is giving them a new command. Not just the command to believe but the command to love – to love one another.
But most people would say that the command that Jesus is giving them ‘to love one another’ is new because he gives them a new reason to love and a new standard of love.
1.This is a new commandment because Jesus gives them and us a new reason to love
“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”.
We love because we have first been loved.
There is a great mantra today which tells us that we cannot love another person before we love ourselves. And so we are told that we need to love ourselves.
I get what people are saying: be kind to yourself; but the mantra ‘love yourself’ is meaningless.
I am caught up in this little circle of me and myself. I am beloved by myself. That really is rather sad. It is also impossible to do. If I am feeling so worthless, so empty, so rubbish how on earth can I begin to love myself.
And actually, even if I claim that I love myself, what it means in practice is that I still need to prove to others that I am lovable. And I will try to do that by being witty or significant or rebellious or funny or committing myself to and fighting for a cause or by trying to be good.
And that is not love, because I am not doing it because I have forgotten myself and am thinking about them. I’m doing whatever I am doing for myself: to make myself acceptable tomyself, to others or to God.
Love is – and this is my working definition – about delighting in the other, desiring communion in an appropriate way with the other, and wanting the best for the other: wanting their eternal joy, their glory.
And Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”
Before we can begin to love, we need to know ourselves as beloved
And that means that we need to be prepared to learn to trust him – that he was the Son of God. That what he says is true. That he was sent from the Father because the Father loves the world. And that he chose to die because he loves you.
And if we know that we are beloved of God, it means that this love that we are called to show is a love that comes from a place of security. You are not trying to prove anything to anyone, because you do not need to. You are known and beloved by the One who really matters, the eternal Son of God.
I would love to be able to put into words, or use an image, or music, to express to you just how loved you are by God. But God has already done it.
If you want to know how much God loves you, then simply look at the cross. Look at the death of the eternal Son of God for you.
Count Zinzendorf was the founder of the Christian movement known as the Moravians. As a young man who had rebelled against his Christian upbringing, he came face to face with a painting of Jesus on the cross. And underneath were the words, “All this I have done for you ..”
John writes later in one of his letters, “In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” (1 John 4:10-11)
The new commandment is this. We love another not in order to get God, or anyone else to love us, but because we have first been loved.
2. This commandment to love is a ‘new’ commandment because Jesus gives us a new standard of love.
“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another”.
Jesus has, earlier in this chapter, taken off his robes, wrapped a towel around his waist, knelt down and washed his disciples’ feet.
It is an act of astonishing love. He washes their feet as a sign of the fact that he has chosen them, called them, fed them with soul food – the food that really matters (he also provided them with physical food), and that he will wash them, make them clean – if only they are prepared to humble themselves, to acknowledge their dirtiness, and to receive it.
It is an act of astonishing love not simply because he humbles himself and does the job of a slave, but because he is pointing forward to the great act that will follow: his giving himself to die on the cross for them and us.
And he does it, because he delights in you and me, he desires communion with us, intimacy with us, and he longs that we will share in the eternal joy and glory that he has in communion with his Father.
And Jesus now says. ‘As I have loved you, so you are to love one another’
At my interview I was asked to speak about my vision for our churches.
I spoke about how I prayed that we would be marked by the initials GRACE
1.That it would be all about God, putting God and prayer at the center.
2.That we would learn to Receive from God – his love, his forgiveness, his acceptance, his presence. We come to church to receive - his word and the bread and wine.
3.That we would be committed to the privilege of Announcing this Good News of the undeserved gift of God’s love and forgiveness and hope.
4.That we would discover what it means to live as part of this Jesus centred Father worshiping Community which God has created, learning to be brothers and sisters – and working to be build community where we live
5.And that – and this is where my word GRACE came a bit unstuck – that we would, as a response to the love of God, show extraordinary hospitality, giving and service.
Extraordinary hospitality.
We have been loved by him, welcomed by him, as we are – and so we welcome others. We open our lives and our homes to the best of our ability to each other – not in order to get God to love us, but because God already loves us.
And by hospitality I don’t mean just inviting people round for meals (many of us won't be able to do that and Jesus has a great deal to say about the dinner party), but just looking out: so and so’s not been here, I wonder how they are, I’ll give them a ring; I haven’t seen that person before and they’re looking a bit lost, I’ll go and say hello; a new neighbor moves in – I’ll put a card through their door to say hi; or simply meeting up with someone for coffee.
Extraordinary giving.
It is very important that we understand this: God loves you and he will go on loving you even if you hold onto all that you have and never give anything to anyone.
But when we get that, really get it, in the head and the heart, that we are so beloved, we are set free to give everything.
My hope for us is that we are so struck by the love of God for us, so wanting that others will discover that love that he has for them, that we will just give. Really give. Sacrificially give. Not just to maintain the church building we like; not just for the benefice costs – although I wouldn’t mind if you do that because you pay for my salary! Not to the diocese so that this love of God can be declared in villages and communities that maybe do not have quite as much wealth as us – but that we give for the making known of the gospel: the good news of the love of God and of Jesus his Son. Because this is the hope for the world.
And Extraordinary service.
… when we are prepared to strip ourselves of our dignity and pride (it doesn’t matter because we are beloved) and kneel down and wash each other’s feet.
Jesus said, “I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you (and because you are beloved), you also should love one another”.
