JOHN 13:31-33a, 34-35
LOVE AS I HAVE LOVED
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.”
THE POWER TO LOVE
Love is something we experience. We know what it’s like to be loved and to love. Perhaps you take it for granted that you grew up being loved – as I did. Perhaps you didn’t have that experience: too many people have grown up without love, with only neglect or abuse. And yet, we all come to be in God’s love, and his love is ever-present, and is even our final destination, what we all long for, what we all strive for.
So when Jesus says that we should love one another, he is stating the obvious, right? We know that we should love one another, and we usually think about our family and friends. But we can honestly admit that loving one another is hard. We can all be challenged to love the people closest to us, because our love can fail. Sometimes it’s us, sometimes it’s the other person; usually, it’s both. We hurt each other; we let each other down.
But Jesus calls us to more, he calls us to love one another as he has loved us. This is clearly impossible! How can we love perfectly, powerfully, with the complete understanding and forgiveness with which Jesus loves us? Yet this is what it means to follow him, to belong to him. And this is also the key to loving as he loves.
The Risen Lord Jesus loves each one of us so much, that he, who is God’s love incarnate, fully sharing in our human condition, has shared his heart with us. When we let him love us, our hearts are enlarged, so that we can love as he does.
The power of the resurrection is seen in this: that we can and will grow in loving each other as he has loved us. This may well be the greatest miracle of all, that in conquering death and sin, Jesus allows us to love each other with his heart. Come Lord Jesus, pour your love into our hearts.