Easter 5 John 13:31-35 Love One Another

Acts 11:1-18 Revelation 21:1-7 John 13:31-35

Picture a simple house set on a small piece of land. Inside the little house a father sits at the dinner table with his children. You can see the love they have for their father by the smiles on their faces. The children are dressed in their pajamas, ready for bed, but the father is dressed in a military uniform; not a bright dress uniform but a drab outfit of a foot soldier prepared to do battle. There is a war going on and although the house they are in seems safe, there is a battle raging nearby. Despite the serene setting, the children are in mortal danger.

The father tells his children that he has to leave. He said, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” The father is going into battle—his children must remain behind. As He looks at his children lovingly and longingly, he tells them that they have each other to love and to look after. The father says they need to love each other as he has loved them.

That picture is similar to what John has painted in our Gospel lesson. Jesus is with His disciples in the upper room. Judas is on his way to betray the Son of Man for thirty silver coins. The war for men’s souls has been raging for a long time and the battle for men’s souls is coming very close.

Jesus had forewarned his disciples just how the Son of Man would be glorified. In Mark (8:31) we read,  “He then began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and after three days rise again.”  In order for Jesus to win the spiritual conflict, He had to fight a physical battle.

Now Jesus turns to his disciples and lovingly tells them, "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 glorify him at once.”  Jesus is not going to be glorified in a worldly way. He is not in the uniform of a King. To the contrary, the simple clothing He is now wearing will be stripped away.

 He will be naked and hung on a cross in derision. But through His battle, all of the world will receive eternal life to the glory of the Father everlasting.

Out of His love He continues to say, “Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, 'Where I am going you cannot come.” The disciples did not realize how short a time they had left with the Lord. In a few hours He would do His mightiest work: redeeming the world, making the salvation of all mankind a reality, offering up the spotless, sinless, all-sufficient blood sacrifice, for without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 9:22) That was what He was about to obtain after a little while— the forgiveness of all sins.

This is not child abandonment. The children had already abandoned the Father. Their sin separated them so that they were no longer in a right relationship with God. The mission of Jesus would change all that. Jesus would reconcile the children so that sin, death and the devil could no longer separate them from the Love of God. He would leave them for a short time to go to the cross in battle but He would return to them in victory.

The way that Jesus is going, which no one else could go, is the way of sacrificial suffering, death, and resurrection. Strong stuff! This is the Son of Man’s work. Through the words of Isaiah, Jesus had predicted this solitary assignment: “I have trodden the winepress alone; from the nations no one is with me” (Is 63:3). That very night, all His disciples would flee His side in fear for their lives; all will reject him. Jesus knows this, but for Jesus--to be alone is allright.

 He is self-sufficient for the task and there is no reason for His children to face the deadly task ahead. His supply of love is full—full enough to cover friend and foe alike. He is without sin. He is the only Son of the Father. He is full of grace and truth. He alone is capable of causing final destruction to sin and Satan and death and hell.

He goes to battle the forces of evil and His little children must remain behind. But Jesus leaves them with a new commandment.  They have each other to love as He loves them. It sounds the same as the old Law but it is new. The Old Law is really about tolerating your neighbor.  The new Law is about Love for Jesus Christ:

His command is not a legal command rather a new way of life that comes from the heart of true disciples. It is a love that realizes the perfect love of Jesus as demonstrated by His death on the cross so that you may have eternal life. It is a love growing out of faith in Christ that is focused on salvation for those brothers and sisters around you. He set the precedent--the way we bring glory to Jesus and the Father is to love one another as He has loved us.

His new command does not tell you, “Do this if you want to be saved,” but rather, “Do this if you want to glorify God.” “Do this if you want to praise God, do this if you want to serve God.” Therefore it is not a command to qualify you for the kingdom. It is a command to you as members of God’s family. Jesus lovingly calls His disciples “little children.” He is speaking to you as part of His family, not as people who are seeking admission. He is not telling you how to become members but how you are to act as family members.

That night when He was betrayed He gave His disciples His very body and blood as His last will and testament. He would seal that new covenant with His body and blood. 

Jesus would die on the cross and be raised again victorious. But He would physically ascend into heaven a few weeks later so that the Holy Spirit could come.  He would no longer be physically present with His disciples to love them. His disciples are to fill in that gap by loving one another, just as He demonstrated His love for them. Jesus is known by His love, His disciples should be known accordingly. People should say of Christians, “Look how they love each other!”   People everywhere should be saying, “Why, you must be a disciple of Jesus Christ!” 

The mark of the Church is love for Jesus Christ carried out in word and deed to those around you. It is the mark of every disciple, not just some.

Love is not a dead-end street. God’s word about the love of Jesus Christ, when sent out does not come back empty. It affects others who are exposed to it. It has magnetic power; it will cause those who do not have this love to long for it. They will be “jealous” for it. They may even inquire, “What makes you so different? Where can I get some of what you have that makes you so special?”

The test of true disciples is true love. False disciples will “show their hand every time.”  They lack Jesus’ love. Disciples who are true disciples love as Jesus loved. Not that their love is perfect; it never is among human beings who still live with a sinful nature. That is why we need so much of the love of Jesus. That is why He must come continuously to us in word and sacraments. That is why we need to be reminded continuously of the love that God has for us through prayer, preaching and practice.

The Lord’s Supper is one of the ways that God’s love for us keeps coming to us. It cleanses us of our sins, even as the Sacrament of Holy Baptism cleansed us of our sin and brought us into the family of God. “Love covers a multitude of sins” (1 Pet 4:8). We need a lot of love because we deal with a lot of sin.

So I end today with the words of Saint Paul, “For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory He may grant you to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” In Jesus Name, Amen.

“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3:14-21 ESV)