When he had gone out, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
In the midst of the mayhem, of everything (John 13), Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment. That when all is said and done, and that was a lot at that moment in time, they were to love one another as Jesus had loved them. This had been culminated that day when Jesus had washed the feet of each of the Twelve. Jesus the Lord came not to lord it over others, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). And Jesus was about to lay down his life for his friends (John 15:13), even for the world (John 1:29; 1 John 2:2). And as his followers, they were to act in that same attitude.
This unconditional love still had boundaries. Jesus insisted on washing their feet, or else they would have no part in him (John 13:8, 10). Even the command to love means accountability. To love involves accountability all the way around. Jesus did not sweep Judas’s betrayal or Peter’s denial under the rug. Although things were set in motion, Judas’s fate was not sealed. Perhaps the tragedy came to be that Judas thought it so and we know the tragic ending. In Peter’s case it was different. He did repent, and as we can see in Jesus’s restoration of Peter, it was all about love (John 21:15-19).
Come what may, we’re to persist in love. In the way of Jesus: love for our neighbor as ourselves which includes love for our enemies. Love for all. And in the nature of who and what we are in Jesus and all that means and anticipates, love for each other, as we live in the privilege and responsibility of all that this love means.
Jesus community 