“Just as I have loved you, you should also love one another.” Jesus, in John 13:31-35.
‘What the hell just happened?’ Title of the UK’s entry in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Today’s Gospel reading takes place at the Last Supper, just after Judas has been told by Jesus to leave and do quickly what he’s going to do. The arrangements for his betrayal then proceed while Jesus continues to talk with his disciples before leaving later to go to the Garden of Gethsemane before his arrest. Jesus begins to speak of glorification and calls the disciples little children as he prepares them for what is to come by telling them that he will only be with them for a little longer. He then gives them a new commandment to love one another just as he has loved them.
That’s familiar to Jews as Leviticus 19:18 states that they must ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’, which is a theme throughout the Old Testament. However, Jesus tells his disciples that they must specifically love one another just as he has loved them and that, when they do, it will be known that they are his followers. He speaks of that love even when he knows that Judas is going to betray him and before those with him have fallen asleep in Gethsemane, Peter has denied him and Thomas will doubt him. His disciples are frail, fallible people who clearly don’t understand what is happening or what is being asked of them. Yet, all this changes through the crucifixion as Jesus is glorified on the throne of the cross with his crown made of thorns and the resurrection then eventually enables the disciples slowly to realise the truth of what Jesus told them. So, God is glorified and love shown as the disciples take out the good news into the world and do not then fail in this despite such great personal cost.
It’s easy to love people we like, much harder to persevere in the face of confusion, hatred or doubt. In the midst of our failings, frailty and misunderstandings, perhaps the way love spread and developed amongst those first disciples will hearten us today as it becomes our hallmark too. There is much in the church and its worshippers now that may create disappointment or frustration but love is also still at work as God’s glory continues to be glimpsed in so many different ways by those willing to seek it.
It’s not love itself which is the focus of the commandment Jesus gives but the way Jesus loves that makes it new and different. It means loving in the face of betrayal, denial and doubt, just as Jesus did by washing his disciples’ feet as a servant despite knowing what lay ahead. More than that, Jesus also loved and associated with the poor, outcasts, lepers, prostitutes, tax collectors and Samaritans, the traditional enemy of the Jews. For his followers, that sometimes means not just learning from him but unlearning what may have become ingrained in habits and lifestyles, changing actions and behaviour. Through becoming vulnerable, from the Latin word vulnerabilis meaning wounding, we follow in the footsteps of Jesus to possible suffering and terrible woundedness but also to the transforming possibility of a new way of life and being.
That may begin with the questions we ask of ourselves as well as others. The UK entry in Saturday’s Eurovision Song Contest was ‘What the hell just happened?’ sung by Remember Monday. Why not sing God’s praises and Remember Sunday, the day new life became possible, asking instead, ‘What, for heaven’s sake, could happen?’
With my prayers; pob bendith,
Christine, Priest Guardian.