A New Command

John 13:34-35

As young adults, my brother and sister and I invented a new card game that we always liked to play at family gatherings. The notable feature of this game was that whenever you won a hand, you got to create a new rule. Sometimes the new rules made the game more fun, and other times you’d hope to win a hand so you could overrule the old rule with a new one. We would usually have to write down all of the rules so we could keep straight what to do when a particular card was played.

Whenever there are new rules, there are bound to be rule breakers. Sometimes it’s just because of plain ignorance of the rules, but other times it’s because people just don’t like the new rules. Someone does not necessarily have to be a rule-breaker to not like new rules – it sometimes just happens.

Jesus had just served the Last Supper to his disciples, and Judas had gone to betray Jesus. Jesus was telling the remaining eleven that the time had come for God to glorify Him, and that he would only be with them a little while longer. Then he sprung a new command on them. Love one another.

Now, there are new commands and there are not-new commands, and if you’ve been playing along at home, love is certainly not a new command. In fact, you can go back to Leviticus 19:18 and find God’s rule: Love your neighbor as yourself.

So how can Jesus be presenting something as old as this concept is as a new command? It would be like me standing in front of you and saying, “I have a new idea about how to be Christians. We should meet together every Sunday and in homes!” To some, this could possibly sound like a new idea, but it’s not new. John Wesley built Methodism on its Class Meetings, and the early Christians met together daily. Likewise, love for neighbor is not a new concept.

What is new in this command, however, is how Jesus commands every Christian to love. I’m glad he clarifies, because it can be pretty easy for us to dilute love. Our culture has no idea what love is. This week in preschool, Andrew wrote a book about love. Each page contains something that he loves: his dad and mom and family; his toys; mashed potatoes… So as long as I love you like mashed potatoes, we’re all good, right?

Except that Jesus clarifies the love that his followers are supposed to live out: as I have loved you, so you must love one another. As Christians, our call is to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples. That clears things up a little bit, but not completely. What exactly was Jesus talking about?  This all goes back to what is actually the main question of life: Who is Jesus?

People in our culture love Jesus. Mostly among young people, there is a mostly-unorganized movement against organized religion – the focus is on relationship with Jesus, not the outer trappings of religion. There are even some who don’t believe that Jesus ever did anything miraculous, that he was simply a fantastic moral teacher.  

If that’s all Jesus is, loving one another is simply teaching good morals. There are many churches where this is the extent of loving one another – in these cases, “church” has become a judgmental school of morals where people are required to live an outward obedience of these morals but nobody gets beneath the surface to really love one another.

But that’s not all Jesus is. When we love others like Jesus loved us, that love is first based on Jesus’ identity as the Second Person in the Trinity. Our One God exists eternally in Three Persons, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This concept is central to orthodox Christian belief – it’s no coincidence that one common attribute of cults is the denial of the Trinity.

Trinitarian love is continually receiving and giving love. God is the Father, God is the Son, God is the Spirit, but the Father is not the Son is not the Spirit. All three exist together in community, loving one another sacrificially. When God was creating humanity, God declares, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” (Genesis 1:26a) God created us to be in community, but God also defines what that community looks like.

There are Dead Sea community members and Sea of Galilee community members.  The Dead Sea has the lowest elevation on the planet, so while there is continually drainage into it, no water flows out. The Dead Sea cannot sustain life. But the Sea of Galilee is different. The source of the Sea of Galilee is two-fold; the Jordan River flows into it, as do springs on the lake floor. But the Jordan River continues to also flow out of the Sea of Galilee, and its water is fresh. Living Water, as the Hebrew people called it.

Why am I talking about rivers and seas when I started out talking about love? Because what our culture defines as love looks a lot like the Dead Sea. It’s all about what people can do for me, about my expectations, about my needs. This is why marriages fail every day – because every day couples discover that this man or this woman who was supposed to be my savior isn’t meeting my needs. But true agape love is more like the Sea of Galilee, which is a love that is forever receiving and giving. If you think you love someone and your expectation is that they will complete you or make you happy, then you are just using them. That is not love.

Love isn’t love if it’s just receiving. Love is giving.

But when Jesus tells his followers to love one another as I have loved you, he has something deeper in mind. In the Greek, in the phrase “as I have loved you,” Jesus uses what is called the aorist tense agapasa, while the command to love one another is in the present tense. The aorist tense is best described as a snapshot – one moment in time, captured in a verb. Jesus is showing his disciples what love is, and he points to one moment in time… his sacrificial death on the cross.

So not only is real love always sacrificial, always giving, but it gives everything.

Jesus goes on to say that this kind of love is the identifying mark of Christians. “By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” This is how the world will know we are Jesus’ followers. Not because of what we don’t do. Not because of how we dress or what we do on Sunday mornings, but because of our love for one another. As John puts it later (in 1 John 4:7-8) Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

Or how about this in 1 John 4:11-12: Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.  No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

Or this from 1 John 4:19-21 We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.

Can it be any clearer? Our call is to sacrificial, giving love for one another. If we don’t love, we cannot be identified as Christians. If we do not love one another, the Bible says we can’t love God.

As long as we’re good with this, let’s dive one level deeper. In Matthew 5:43-48, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said ,‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

So what Jesus says is the love that we share with our friends and family… that’s not the mark of the Christian. It’s the love we have for our enemies that identifies us as God’s children. When it comes to God’s demands on us, let’s just be honest and admit that we can’t just buckle down and try harder. It’s not about working harder. God’s requirement is perfection.

And there is only one way to get there: surrender. Total surrender to the Holy Spirit. Because Jesus already made us perfect if we will surrender to him. But He won’t make you surrender. You have to be willing to do so. This is also how you love your enemies. Let me tell you this: fake it ‘til you make it doesn’t work. It’ll work for a while but then it’ll all come crashing down and you’ll end up worse off than before. But allowing the Holy Spirit to shape you and to love your enemies through you – now that is love.