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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!)
A number of years ago, several of the larger churches in town had their members put up signs in their front yards at home. One church’s yard signs, above the church’s name, said, “Love God. Love people.” And, if the church’s intention was to put a summary of God’s law on its signs, then the church did a great job, for the first tablet, or “table”, of three Commandments truly can be summed up as our loving God, and the second tablet, or “table”, of seven Commandments truly can be summed up as our loving people (confer, for example, Luke 10:27, citing Deuteronomy 6:5 and Leviticus 19:18). St. Paul could write to the Romans simply that love is the fulfilling of the law (Romans 13:10). So, we may not be all that surprised that Jesus gives a commandment to love in the Gospel Reading that we heard today (the second of two appointed options from Jesus’s so-called “Last Discourse”, which options share some of the same themes [the first option is John 16:12-2]), but, rather, we may be surprised that Jesus in some sense can call that commandment to love one another “new” (confer 1 John 2:7; 3:11; 2 John 5). In Jesus’s day, loving one another reportedly was expected even by pagan philanthropy and political solidarity (Ridderbos, ad loc John 13:34, p.476). But, Jesus makes clear that the new quality of His command to His disciples is their loving one another just as He has loved them (confer 1 John 2:8). Considering the Gospel Reading this morning, we realize that “Just as God loved us, we love one another”.
The Gospel Reading comes, as I mentioned, from Jesus’s teaching on the night when He was betrayed, after Jesus had washed the disciples feet (John 13:21-30), presumably after Jesus had instituted the Sacrament of the Altar (for example, Luke 22:14-23), and after Jesus had spoken about His betrayal and Judas had left to betray Jesus (John 13:21-30). The Divinely‑inspired St. John writes that it was night, and we can imagine the darkness outside, but, as we heard, inside Jesus spoke of His and the Father’s glory (Lenski, ad loc John 13:31, p.955), glory linked to His departure from the disciples at least for a time, and glory perhaps also linked to the new commandment that He emphasizes, for His disciples to love one another as He loved them, and arguably so show His love to all people and so further glorify God.
Whether you call it an old commandment or a new commandment hardly seems to matter when it comes to our fulfilling the commandment by loving one another: old or new, either way, we fail to love one another perfectly. Whether in terms of authority, life, sexual purity, possessions, reputation, or contentment with property or people, we fail to think, say, and do the good things to one another that we should, and instead we think, say, and do the evil things to one another that we should not. Our failure to love one another perfectly is part of our failure to love God perfectly. On account of those sinful failures to love, we deserve nothing but both death here and now and torment in hell for eternity. Yet, while our sinful nature hates God and our fellow human beings, and all too often our sinful nature wins the war going on inside of us, God rescues us from our body of death through Jesus Christ our Lord (Romans 7:22-25)! God leads us to turn in sorrow from our hate of Him and one another, and God gives us a redeemed nature that both wants to love Him and one another and trusts Him to forgive us our sinful nature and all our sinful failures to love. When we so repent, then God does, in fact, forgive us. God forgives us for Jesus’s sake.
Jesus loved not only His own who were in the world but also all people to the end, that is, to the utmost, which meant the end of His earthly life, at least for a time (John 13:1). Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man, incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary. Since Jesus is of one substance with the Father and the Holy Spirit, Jesus’s glory is also God’s glory, and God’s glory is also Jesus’s glory. That glory at times seems like the very opposite of what we might think of as glory (confer Morris, ad loc John 13:31, p.560). Yet, Jesus’s suffering and death on the cross—on account of our sins, in our place, and for our benefit—that suffering and death on the cross brings glory to God. Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us (Ephesians 5:2); no one has greater love than Him, laying down His life for us (John 15:13). Jesus’s resurrection in part showed that the Father accepted Jesus’s sacrifice on our behalf, and ultimately the ascended Jesus was glorified in heaven in the Father’s presence with the glory that the Son had with the Father before the world existed (John 17:5; confer John 8:54; 12:28). Jesus’s death led to His glory (Isaiah 52:13), and Jesus’s death leads to our glory, which we begin to receive as we receive forgiveness, life, and salvation through His Word and Sacraments.
The night when Jesus was betrayed traditionally is called “Maundy Thursday” for a “mandate” or “command” that was given that night: sometimes that command is understood as the footwashing (John 13:14), sometimes that command is understood as our loving one another as He has loved us (confer Brown, ad loc John 13:34, p.607), but perhaps that command is best understood as the eating of His Body and the drinking of His Blood in the Sacrament of the Altar, though the new commandment to love one another as He has loved us arguably is related to that new covenant in His blood (Luke 22:20; confer Jeremiah 31:31-34 and Mark 14:24). God makes us His little children in Holy Baptism, cleansing us in the Church by the washing of water with the word (Ephesians 5:26); and we live out our Baptisms with daily contrition and faith, including privately confessing our sins to our pastor for the sake of individual Holy Absolution; and in the Sacrament of the Altar we are united with Jesus and with one another, which union in part results in other people seeing His life‑changing love through us (confer Roffhack, cited by Lenski, ad loc John 13:35, p.961).
Some of us may have learned the song often called “They’ll know we are Christians by our love”, written in the 19-60s by Peter Scholtes, who then was a Roman Catholic priest leading a youth choir on the south side of Chicago; he wrote the song when he could not otherwise find what he thought was an appropriate song for an upcoming series of ecumenical, interracial events (Hymnary.org). The song is based in part on the last verse of today’s Gospel Reading (Wikipedia), and the song expresses at least that thought well (confer 1 John 2:5). “Just as God loved us, we love one another”, and other people take note of that love! God’s love for us in Christ is the starting point (1 John 4:11). Yet, His love is more than our example, or even our motivation, but rather His love effects our love (Brown, ad loc John 13:34-35, pp.612, 614). God’s love for us in Christ gives His command for us to love one another new depth and new power (Roehrs‑Franzmann, ad loc John 13:34, p.98). The way that Jesus expresses the command expects that we will be able to meet it (Lenski, ad loc John 13:35, p.962), and the Holy Spirit gives us the new possibility of fulfilling that command (Ridderbos, ad loc John 13:34, p.476). With our lives transformed by God through the forgiveness that we receive in His Word and Sacrament, we at least try to love one another as He has loved us (1 Peter 1:22-23), even to the point of our death. Our loving one another flows from our faith (1 John 3:23) and gives evidence to our being born of God and knowing God (1 John 4:7). For example, St. Paul writes that husbands should love their wives as Christ loved the Church and gave himself up for Her (Ephesians 5:25, 28). In any case, the “one anothers” whom we love are redeemed sinners like us (confer and compare Brown, ad loc John 13:34-35, p.614). Sometimes our love for one another may not seem like love, such as when we tell fellow believers that they are sinning, and, if they do not repent, we even cut them off from the communion of the Church, but we so tell them and so cut them off out of love so that they will repent. One Early Church Father reports that believers’ love for one another and readiness to die for one another was an attraction to the Church for unbelievers, and another Church Father about a century later reports that believers’ lack of love for one another was a detraction from the Church for unbelievers (Tertullian and Chrysostom, respectively, both cited by Morris, ad loc John 13:35, p.563 n.79). To be sure, in this lifetime, even enabled by God, we will never love one another as Christ loved us perfectly, so we live in the forgiveness of sins that we both receive from God and in turn extend to one another. Just as God has forgiven us, we forgive one another. Forgiving one another could be the greatest way that we love one another as Christ has loved us.
I have often thought and sometimes said that if Pilgrim had yard signs they might say “God forgives us. We forgive others.” That sign would be a decent summary of God’s Gospel. Our telling people to love God and other people by itself will not lead people to love either God or other people, but our telling people that God has loved and forgiven them in Christ can and does lead them to love God and other people. “Just as God loved us, we love one another.” The disciples could not follow Jesus to His death on the cross and so were apart from Jesus for a time (confer John 13:36-38), but, thanks to that death on the cross and the forgiveness that we freely receive because of it, the disciples and we can be together with Jesus for eternity, fully experiencing the peace and joy that we have in part already now.
Amen.
Alleluia! Christ is risen! (He is risen, indeed! Alleluia!)
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +