April 29, 2010

John 13:33-35 "My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come. "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

You see it in the movies and on TV, probably because it's true to life. A teacher needs to leave their classroom, for whatever reason, and when they leave, their normally well-behaved students get out of hand. What's the saying? When the cat's away, the mice will play. Jesus' students, his disciples, had been following their Teacher around for quite some time, and now Jesus was telling them that He would soon be leaving them - well physically anyway. Later Jesus told his disciples, "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." (Matthew 28:20b) Jesus would still be with them, He just wouldn't be physically right in front of their faces. So it is with us today - Jesus is with us always, just not physically right in front of our face.

Jesus decided to get proactive, to keep the mice from playing. Paul tells us in Galatians that, "The entire law is summed up in a single command: "Love your neighbor as yourself." (Galatians 5:14) Instead of coming up with a whole book of rules, instead of coming up with a whole collection of 'when I'm gone, if this happens - then do this,' Jesus kept it simple and told His disciples to: "Love one another."

But here, Jesus doesn't just tell His disciples to love their neighbors as themselves. His direction is much stronger. Jesus told them, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." I remember for a while when I was a kid , I would get really creative when it came to coming up with a big number. For example, someone would ask me how many stars I saw in the sky, and I would come up with - 'a katrillion kajillion.' On a scale of 1 to 10 - with 10 being the most a person could possibly love, Jesus' love weighs in at 'a badillion katrillion kajillion.' Jesus is saying - love one another to the max. There is no love that trumps Jesus' love, and this is how He wants his disciples to love one another.

The words from our Lesson from this Sunday, from John, are re-worked in the book of First John, "We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen. And he has given us this command: Whoever loves God must also love his brother." (I John 4:19-21). Jesus loved us first and provided the example of how we are to love one another. Crack open the Gospels and get reading to get more of the details and a better grasp on how Jesus loved us - to get more of the details and a better grasp on exactly how we are to love on another.

So how are we doing? Are we loving one another just as Jesus has loved us? Jesus gave us a thermometer with which we can take our 'love-temperature.' Jesus tells us that if we are loving as He has loved us, then all men will recognize this outstanding love. "...that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16b) Do we as a church body stick out when it comes to loving others? Do we as individuals stick out when it comes to loving others? Or do we find ourselves blending in and following the world's format of loving me, myself and I the most, at the expense of loving one another? The command itself is simple. Making it happen isn't always as simple.

Thankfully, Jesus took care of the times when we fail to love to the max, by loving us to the max anyway. The Teacher who left His classroom will return one more time on the last day to take His students to be with Him forever. The students have the privilege of going with their Teacher, not because of how well they carried out His command to love one another as He loved them, but they have the privilege of going with their Teacher because of how well He loved them. Because He loved them enough to leave the comforts of heaven to live a perfect life in their place - Because He loved them enough to even die for them - Because of all that their Teacher has done for them, the students will want to show thanks to their teacher by following his command to love. First John tells us: "This is love for God: to obey his commands." (I John 5:3a).

There was another time when Jesus physically left his disciples - in the Garden of Gethsemane - when he instructed them to "Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation." (Mark 14:38) When the cats away, the mice should pray - they should watch and pray. We should pray, for among other things, the understanding, the strength and the ambition to follow Jesus' command to love one another to the 'kajillionth' degree, which is how much He has loved us. Let's pray now.

Dear Jesus,

You want us to love others as you have loved us. It's hard for us to really comprehend how much you have loved us. Expand our understanding of your love for us so that we may be filled with an extra dose of ambition to follow your example in loving one another. Amen.