John 13:31-35
Have
you ever noticed that when a team wins a championship oftentimes one of the
players will be quoted saying how much he loves all his teammates; how they are
a family? But have you ever seen a player from the losing team make a similar
statement? I haven’t.
I’m
not picking on athletes. It is human nature to feel good about, or “love”,
those you have a relationship with when everything is going well. That seems to
be the situation that the disciples find themselves in this passage. In it, Jesus
gave his closest disciples a “new command”.
“Love one another. As I
have loved you, so you must love one another.”
This
command comes on the heels of Jesus entering Jerusalem like a king. His
movement/organization seemed to be firing on all cylinders. The expectations of
his disciples must have been flying sky high. So when Jesus gave them this new
command what did they think?
Are
they like the winning player who “loves his teammates” because everything is
going well? For the disciples’ way of thinking, they are winning the game. They
might even be thinking that Jesus will be in power soon and they should be next
in line.
But
Jesus knows that the storm is about to hit. In fact, he spells out his new
command more clearly in John 15:12-13:
"My command is this: Love each other as I have
loved you. Greater
love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
What
does this kind of sacrificial love look like for us today? In Ephesians 5:25-27
Paul instructs husbands to “love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up
for her to make her holy… without stain or wrinkle or any other
blemish.”
In
the same way, Jesus is calling us to love our brothers and sisters in Christ
with a love that desires the best for them. This requires being honest,
vulnerable and giving unconditional love.
It means, we are to love each other
with our warts and blemishes, just as Christ loves us. It means we are to love
each other not just when we win the game, but when life is a struggle; when
life seems out of control; even when we lose the game.
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