“Love one another as I have loved you”
Of all the commandments Christ gave us, this is the most important! It includes all of the other commandments. The failures we have as Christians stem from our failure to love.
In the first part of today’s Gospel, Jesus speaks of a three fold glory:
1) It is the time of his own glorification by His suffering and death. The greatest glory in life comes from sacrifice because of love for others.
2) It is the time of glorifying God, His Father, by Jesus’ supreme obedience expressed by His death on the cross. 3) And, It is the time of the Father’s glorification of His Son Jesus, by His resurrection, ascension, and eternal glory.
Today’s Gospel reading is very short, but it is packed with many messages. The first sentence proclaimed in today’s Gospel probably went unnoticed. It begins “When Judas had left, Jesus said “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him.” At first glance, we might wonder why John points out in his Gospel that Jesus waited until Judas had left. If we look back a few verses to the beginning of Jesus’ last supper discourse, Jesus says that “the one who ate my food will raise his heel against me!” After this, John tells us that Jesus was deeply troubled and testified to the betrayal. Where the “Evil One” is present there is tension and division. And our love cannot be complete or fulfilling. So when Judas who had now become possessed by the “Evil One” left, the tension of the moment was relaxed and Jesus gives this testimony on love, and the Christian concept of glory.
“Love one another as I have loved you!” When we take this commandment to heart, we may feel that we are inadequate in fulfilling this commandment of Jesus, after all He is God! And out of love for us, He died on the cross for our sins.
But we must remember, by ourselves nothing is possible, but with His help all things are possible. To know him is to love him!
Some of you may remember when a series of books were published called “Chicken Soup for the Soul”, and carried various subtitles. In one book there’s a story about a man who came out of his office one Christmas morning and found a little boy from the nearby projects looking with great admiration at the man’s new car. The little boy asked “Does this car belong to you?” and the man said, “That’s right. My brother gave it to me as a gift.” With that the little boy let out a long sigh and said “Boy, I would really like…” And the man fully expected the boy to say “I would like to have a brother like that, who would give me such a beautiful car,” but instead the man was amazed when the little boy said, “Wow, I would like to be that kind of a brother. I wish I could give that kind of car to my little brother.” Somehow that child understood the secret of Jesus’ new commandment of love, which Jesus game to His apostles during the last discourse, as described in today’s Gospel. “Love one another as I have loved you!”
True love consists of “Not getting something from the lover, but giving something to the loved one!
We have so many ideas of love that we may be confused as to real love. Our love may be utilitarian – that is we love another for what we can get out of it! Or we may have a romantic love – but again our affections for another may because of the pleasure we derive from it. Or our love may be Humanitarian – that is we love everyone, the whole world, but we can’t stand the people near us!
The only true love is Christian love which we give expecting nothing in return. And Jesus says “This is how you will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”