A New Commandment?
Text: John 13:31-35
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another.” Jesus spoke these words on the night when He was betrayed. He was instituting a new covenant in His blood that night as He established the Lord’s Supper. And just as the old commandments had been given to Moses when the old covenant was established by the blood of bulls and sheep, so this new commandment was given when the blood of the Lamb of God was about to be poured out at the altar of the cross.
But was it a new commandment? After all, hadn’t the Lord decreed in that first covenant in Leviticus: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”? Were the children of Abraham not commanded to love each other not only in words, but also through their everyday interactions with each other? As St. Paul, the former Pharisee and expert in the Law turned Apostle of Jesus noted, the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
And the Lord had good reason for giving that commandment. As His people would settle in their new homeland after the Lord drove out the unbelieving nations, they were not to model themselves in the dog-eat-dog ways of the Gentiles. They were not to seek how to get rich off their fellow Israelites’ misfortune or weakness. They were not to bear grudges or seek vengeance or try to take each other down a peg or two. The Law was meant to guide them. It was meant to instruct them. It was meant to show them what God willed for the life of His people and the conditions under which humanity would best thrive.
But that same Law—love—that word we polish and adore so much in our own society today, that same word of Law also condemns. It is not merely information. It is not merely suggestion. It is command. And for those who do not do as it commands, there is only threat and consequence. For mankind has consistently failed to love neighbor as we love ourselves. We constantly look for things to hold over someone’s head. We look for grievances and lists of errors they’ve made, trespasses against us, so that we don’t have to love them through actions or words or thoughts. We find those things that make them so different from us that we can’t even imagine serving that person from another background or another culture or another socioeconomic sector or another political stance. We look for reasons to be angry or cut them off, for ways to not have to love them in truth and deed, but at most, in words and speech only. The rich and powerful of humanity still profit off the weak and poor. We still find ways to exploit and then ignore. We still do everything in our power to make sure that our will be done, and no one should dare stand in the way of getting what we want.
“A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” Our failures at loving the people we can see stems from our failure at loving the God we can’t see. For what is the greatest commandment, the one from which the command to love our neighbor flows? “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” When we fear, love, and trust something more than God, it throws our entire life out of line. We start loving things more than people. We start worshiping idols—in whatever form they take—rather than trusting the Lord. We fail to see His great love for us. Or, if we do recognize it as some level, we fail to reflect that to those around us, as He has intended us to do. We do not love as we ought, and that means that we certainly do not love one another as our Creator has commanded us.
The commandment to love one another is old—very old, older than creation itself. So why does Jesus call it a new commandment here? “A new commandment I give you, that you love one another.” Jesus does not lie, so what does He mean? The newness of it, which is made fresh from the new covenant in His blood that night He was betrayed, comes from His next words: “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” It is Jesus’ love, poured out on the cross, shared with us in the new testament in His body broken and blood shed—that’s what makes this commandment new.
It’s all tied into what He says at the beginning of the reading. “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 glorify Him at once.” Those are words about Jesus’ cross. Whenever He speaks of being glorified, being lifted up, He’s talking about His crucifixion and what it will accomplish for the world. What He’s saying is, “Now is the Son of Man glorified on the cross. Now is the time that God’s love for fallen humanity will shine at its brightest. Now you will see how far love will go in service to those who others would think are unworthy or undeserving or unlovable. But God has loved sinners. God has loved His Son. And that love will now be made known in Him, in His cross, in a new and brilliantly shining way. And as I have loved you in this self-sacrifice, you also are to love one another.”
What makes this commandment new is that it flows from the cross of Jesus. It receives its strength and durability from the infinite love of Christ. It will be informed by the sacrifice of God Himself. Our love will flow from the hands and feet and side of Jesus.
We fallen creatures are often quite confused about love. Too often we make it about what we feel—the love we give is in proportion to how good someone or something makes us feel. We focus on romantic love or the warm feelings of affection and then make a decision how we will pay that back. But Jesus sets us free from all this record-keeping and counting. “Just as I have loved you, freely, without reservation; you also are to love one another.” Jesus starts the chain reaction. He loves first, before there’s anything that we’ve done or offered to Him, before there was anything in us that was worth serving us in love in His life and ministry, before offering Himself on the cross, before rising from the dead, before ruling everything for our benefit. Jesus loves first, and then, as He has loved us, then we love others. We’re released from having to keep score and counting who’s ahead of whom on acts of service. What makes this a new commandment is that it’s about His love: “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.”
Since it is about Jesus’ love, we should ask how His love has made itself known in the most powerful way. It’s forgiveness. It’s healing. It’s tending to those around us, just as He did, in the places where He has set us. He does it when He gives His beloved disciple John to His mother Mary at the cross, so that there would be a new son and new mother to care for each other. He does it when He feeds those who are hungry in His path. He does it when He has mercy on those who are on the fringes, the sick, the lepers, those ensnared and trapped by evil. His love sets the tone for us so that we can know how to love others as He has loved us.
So we are called to do. In this new love, we draw from the strength of what Jesus has done, rather than from our own strength and resources. We look to Him as the source of our love for others because with Him there is always more. So when we fail to love others as He has loved us, we return to His love; that is, we return to His forgiveness. And then, replenished, we turn back to our neighbor.
This is the life of a Christian. It’s receiving good things from God, then being the instrument that delivers God’s gifts to others. When we run out, when we drop the ball, we go back to Jesus for healing, forgiveness, and more good things for ourselves and others. And then we look outward again. In this way, we direct everyone—ourselves included—to the true source of love and strength: God Himself. By this all people will know who we follow, who we imitate, who we belong to. In the name of Jesus, who first loved us. Amen.
