When Judas had left them, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and God will glorify him at once. My children, I will be with you only a little while longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13.31-33a, 34-35)
On this Fifth Sunday of Easter, we have for our selection from Scripture a short passage from the Gospel of John, as is often the case during the Easter Season. This particular passage can be included as part of a much longer section of John’s gospel that follows and that carries the title “The Farewell Discourse,” the name given to it because it is largely made up of Jesus’s final words to his followers. The setting is his last meal with this small group of followers.
We would be right to assume that the words Jesus offers his disciples as his end on earth nears are of special importance to him and to them. Any teacher knows from experience the rush to summarize the most important points of the semester as it comes to a close, hoping against hope that the students will retain some of them. So it is here.
In recent years, we have seen much the same in a few books written by or about dying men, most notably Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom who transcribes into book form the last conversations he had with one of his college professors who is dying of ALS, and more recently The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch, also a college professor, who decides to write a book for his children before he dies from pancreatic cancer, hoping his words will inspire them to follow their dreams.
Both are excellent books, filled to the brim with important life lessons, made all the more poignant and powerful because they are the last words from dying men. We find the same in Jesus’ final words to his followers. To fully appreciate the few verses that we hear today, it is important that we look more closely at the context in which they are found because, in fact, there is a larger picture that should not be overlooked.
The first thing we want to remember is that the Last Supper is presented very differently in John’s gospel than in the other three, the synoptics offering a succinct summary of the meal whereas John allows for a lengthy discourse after the meal. Even more notable, there are no eucharistic overtones to the meal in John’s text. Instead, we have the washing of the feet of the disciples by Jesus after the meal.
That foot-washing is followed by Jesus saying to his disciples, “Do you realize what I have done for you? You call me ‘teacher’ and ‘master,’ and rightly so, for indeed I am. If I, therefore, the master and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash one another’s feet. I have given you an example to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do.”
That act by Jesus is important for any number of reasons, but for our purposes we want to see its intimate connection with these verses that we have today, verses that come a short while after the washing of the feet and that contain what we now call “the new commandment” because Jesus says to his followers, “I give you a new commandment: love one another.” Then, he defines specifically what he means by love, telling them, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”
Clearly, then, the act of washing the feet that concludes with “as I have done for you, you should also do” and the new commandment that concludes with “as I have loved you, so you also should love one another” are meant to be seen as bound together. In other words, the love that the disciples must have if they wish to be seen as his followers is defined by Jesus’ example of service.
The example he has given in the foot washing and the new commandment to love one another are inexorably linked, impossible to separate, neither fully understood without the other, both necessary to a complete understanding of discipleship. If one wishes to follow Jesus, then he or she knows the rules of the road, namely “as I have done for you, you should also do.”
With the foot washing and with the new commandment, seen as one and the same, not as separate, Jesus ends the class on discipleship. He knows that in a short while he will not be with them, telling them as much when he says, “I will be with you only a little while longer. Where I go you cannot come.” And so he sends them on their way with the command to repeat the love that he has shown to them, in this way continuing his presence in the world through them as they imitate his example of service to others.
If the picture is not perfectly clear to us–and it should be–John tucks into the edges a few other clues on the love that Jesus makes central and critical to full and faithful discipleship. The first is found at the start of the supper when John tells us, “Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father. He loved his own in the world and he loved them to the end.” He loved them to the end.
The second is found right before he gives them the new commandment. He says to the disciples, “My little children, I will be with you only a little while longer.” My little children. These two phrases add still another layer onto the meaning of the love that Jesus has for those who follow him. It is an unconditional love, one that loves the other to the end.
And the regardless quality is found in his calling them “my little children.” Jesus knows in his heart that they will misunderstand him, fail him in the moment of testing, and be clueless in the face of the crucifixion. He has already told them that “one of you will betray me” and he will predict much the same for Peter when he tells him after the supper, “The cock will not crow before you deny me three times.”
And yet, with this sure knowledge of their failure in the face of adversity, Jesus loved them to the end because they were like little children, prone to fail, quick to forget, and often fragile in frightening situations. Notwithstanding all their faults, his love for them would not break or bend, but would stay immovable and intact to his last breath.
His love, in other words, was not dependent on their action or inaction, on their loyalty or disloyalty, on their smarts or their stupidity, but was independent, given freely, without conditions or caveats, because it was divine love that flowed from the Father through the Son into these little ones in the world. As Jesus followed the example of his Father’s love, so now he asks his disciples to follow his example, sharing that same love with others in the world who, like them, are more often than not like little children, but who are loved to the end because divine love does not have a shelf life.
So, having looked more closely at the context and at the content of these verses, where does this leave us? It’s a good question and it has a good answer. The answer is found in how seriously we take Jesus at his word. He has put before us his example, telling us “do for others as I have done for you” and offered his commandment of love, stating “as I have loved you, so you should love one another.” It clearly is a passing of the torch, asking us who follow in his footsteps to do as he had done and to love as he had loved.
More importantly, it becomes the singular test of discipleship. Jesus leaves no doubt about its pre-eminence when he tells his followers, “This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Of the hundred and one things he could have asked on the final exam, he chose only this one. Love for one another. It is not a bonus question. It is the only question on the exam. In short, if we fail to love one another, then we have failed the course, our whole grade being dependent on it.
Factually, there has never been a time in human history in which Jesus’ example and his call to love have not been needed. Looking back, past ages are filled with wars, bloodshed, and inhumanity, as often done by the hands of so-called Christians as they were done by those who did not call themselves Christians. We cannot undo the past, but we also should not repeat it.
That requires that we do something differently in the present, beginning with an honest look at how little different we are from the past. We are little better. We live in an age where divisions are rampant, where hostilities are at a fever pitch, and where inhumane acts are regularly done to the powerless and the voiceless by individuals, by groups, and by governments. In short, if ever there was an age in which its peoples needed to be reminded of Jesus’ example and his call to love, it is our own age.
We have forgotten or ignored the fundamental principle that God loves all his children. And it is this same love that Jesus gave as an example when he reached out to the poor, stood beside the sinner, and opened his arms to the outcast. His love was not conditioned on country of origin, level of income, or color of skin. He broke down barriers wherever he saw them and he built bridges wherever he saw separation between peoples.
His love for others was so radical and so all-encompassing that he was put to death for it, dying on a cross between two criminals as proof that his love was unconditional and did not have an end point. It was this same love that he wanted his followers to repeat in the world, a costly love for sure, but one without which the world is doomed to remain in darkness.
In his opening address on the balcony of Saint Peter’s, Pope Leo recently repeated the same message, reminding us that “God loves all of us without any limits or conditions.” He also called believers to be “disciples of the Christ who goes before us.” Seeing the darkness that overshadows our age, he stated, “The world needs his light.” Almost verbatim, his words echo the final words that Jesus addressed to his first followers, calling them to an unconditional love, to a continuance of his example in the world.
As we near the end of the Easter season, a time of rebirth and renewal, it is good that we are reminded of Jesus’ last instructions to his followers, a message that apparently is easily overlooked or ignored by many who otherwise would call themselves his followers, a betrayal as ugly as that of Judas, all things considered. Like Judas, too many of us also carry a bag of silver in our hands, blood money collected for our turning our back on the example of Jesus and cashed in for our failure to love as generously and as openly as he did.
As we know, Easter promises new beginnings for those who want a fresh start, for those who have tired of the ugliness that has a stranglehold on our world, for those who finally want to follow the ways and words of Jesus the Crucified Lord. In other words, there is still hope for us and hope for the world. But it is a hope that cannot live long without action on our part, the darkness only growing heavier with each day that we fail to follow the example of Jesus, refusing to love as he loved.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 