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TODAY'S SERMON...
John 13:31-35 – “Love One Another as I Have Loved You”
In our lectionary passage today (John 13:31-35) we hear very familiar words of Jesus:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
They are familiar, but we seldom read them in context.
In John 13 we find ourselves in the Upper Room. Jesus has washed his disciples feet, Judas has just left to betray Jesus, and the final hours of Jesus’ earthly life are unfolding. John’s Gospel is deliberately and often explicitly symbolic and so when John tells us in verse 30 that it was night we can read this both literally and symbolically. Darkness is falling around Jesus.
In the shadow of farewell, with the weight of betrayal in the air, Jesus speaks not of fear, but of love. Not of escape, but of glory. “Love one another,” he says, “as I have loved you.” Reminding us that love is only truly love when it continues in times of darkness and difficulty.
But this commandment to love is also a new commandment – it is not just a commandment to love in a polite and distant kind of way, it is a new commandment because it is a command to love as Jesus himself has loved them. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
As we see across all the Gospels, this is a love that transcends ego, clinging, and condition. It is not based on the worthiness of the other, nor on shared beliefs, nor even on affection. It flows from a different source, the wellspring of a deeper divine awareness. It is the space in which Jesus lives and breathes – he lives constantly in the Divine Awareness at the centre of his being.
And so the love Jesus commands is not so much a striving, but a recognition. It is to see the Eternal Divine I Am in all things and in all people. It is also to see this same Eternal Divine I Am dwelling in the depths of our own hearts. As Jesus says to the Jewish leaders who are interrogating him a few chapters before in John 10:34 “Do your own scriptures not say that you are gods” (in other words, you are Divine, Divinity dwells within you). Like Jesus, we too have been made to be expressions of the Divine Logos, the Divine Wisdom and Love that we see in the opening verses of John’s Gospel.
Jesus commandment to love one another as he has loved us is to to discover the Divine I Am dwelling within us, that flows up like a spring of water - welling up with eternal life love (John 4:14).
And so to love like Jesus is to see the world and other people with the eyes of Christ, the eyes of Divine Love, to see everything as an expression of the Divine Logos through which all things are created and come into being, that Divine Logos which is a light that enlightens every person coming into the world, shining upon and shining within every person even thought they may live in ignorance of it.
To love as Jesus has loved in John’s Gospel is also to be willing to take on the role of a servant, to be willing to identify with the least and the lowest, as Jesus does at the beginning of the chapter 13,when, even though he is the host of the meal, he takes off his outer garment and bends down to wash his disciples feet, even the feet of the enemy, Judas, the one he already knows is going to betray him.
To love as Jesus has loved in John’s Gospel is also ultimately also to be willing to suffer in the cause of love as Jesus was willing to do in his crucifixion. In John’s Gospel the Glory of Jesus is that even in his darkest hour he does not let himself be overcome by evil, but steadfastly continues to live in the awareness of Divine Love.
And that connects us with verse 32 which comes just before Jesus gives the disciples his new commandment when Jesus says: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him”
What exactly does he mean when he says “Now the Son of Man has been glorified,”?
As we have mentioned, Judas has just left. Betrayal has been set in motion. And yet, for Jesus, this is the hour of glory—not because suffering is good in itself, but because his love remains steadfast and unmoved and begins to shine brighter even in the face of betrayal. Glory, in John’s Gospel, is not splendour in the worldly sense, it is the shining forth of Divine Light through human vulnerability. It is the shining forth of Divine Love even as the depth of human darkness seems to be growing. This is the whole focus of John’s gospel: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it – we know how this story is going to end.
In a world where it sometimes feels like darkness is growing again, where battle-lines are being drawn, where enemies are being more clearly defined we face a choice: Do we get drawn into the darkness, allowing ourselves to be overcome by it, allowing fear, darkness and hatred to creep into our own hearts and minds, narrowing our hearts and narrowing our love, or, do we hold onto the glory of Divine Love that shines unrelenting in the face of darkness and evil.
When darkness descends this is the time for true Divine Love to begin to shine within them.
Note how in our passage today in verse 33 Jesus addresses his disciples as “Little children.” It is a tender phrase. Not patronising, or condescending but intimate. On the one hand it might reminds us that the spiritual journey, is a return to childlike seeing, not childishness, but the openness of one who trusts the presence of God in all things. It is perhaps also an indication that the disciples still have some spiritual growing to do.
Jesus is leaving them, at least in physical form, but not in truth or in spirit. The whole of the Farewell Discourse of John’s Gospel from chapter 13-17 is an invitation to move into a new kind of relationship with Jesus. “I will not leave you orphaned,” he will later say. “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The spiritual path is to realise that Christ is not elsewhere, but can be discovered here and now, in the heart of the one who abides in Christ-like love.
But what is one to make of the words that follow on in verse 33 “Where I am going, you cannot come”? It sounds a little exclusionary. But in verse 36 we see that Jesus is speaking of a lack of readiness. “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” (John 13:36). Where Jesus is going, is not so much a place, but rather a state of being. They may not be ready to enter fully into that state of being now, but one day they will. They are still like children on the spiritual path. They are only just beginning to learn the path of Christ-like love.
They may not be ready yet to truly love as Jesus loves, but the path of transformation will open to them, as they abide in Christ, as they practice his way, and as the Spirit awakens them to the Christ within. For such love is not ours to produce. It is already present. It is the very energy of God at the heart of being. To “love as I have loved you” is to awaken to the truth that there is only One Love, and it lives in and through all.
The Sufi poet Rumi once wrote: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
And so this commandment should comes to us, not as a burden, but as an invitation to live from the centre, from that place where Christ and the soul are not two, but one. As Jesus will say later in John’s Gospel – “On that day you will know that I am in you and you are in me.” (John 14:20)
But for now, like little children who are still learning and who falter, fail and fall, like the disciples, we practice this way of Christ-like Love – and above all things we practice the art of abiding or resting in Christ for it is in abiding or resting in Christ that the fruit of Divine Love will begin to grow in our lives. Amen.
In our lectionary passage today (John 13:31-35) we hear very familiar words of Jesus:
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
They are familiar, but we seldom read them in context.
In John 13 we find ourselves in the Upper Room. Jesus has washed his disciples feet, Judas has just left to betray Jesus, and the final hours of Jesus’ earthly life are unfolding. John’s Gospel is deliberately and often explicitly symbolic and so when John tells us in verse 30 that it was night we can read this both literally and symbolically. Darkness is falling around Jesus.
In the shadow of farewell, with the weight of betrayal in the air, Jesus speaks not of fear, but of love. Not of escape, but of glory. “Love one another,” he says, “as I have loved you.” Reminding us that love is only truly love when it continues in times of darkness and difficulty.
But this commandment to love is also a new commandment – it is not just a commandment to love in a polite and distant kind of way, it is a new commandment because it is a command to love as Jesus himself has loved them. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
As we see across all the Gospels, this is a love that transcends ego, clinging, and condition. It is not based on the worthiness of the other, nor on shared beliefs, nor even on affection. It flows from a different source, the wellspring of a deeper divine awareness. It is the space in which Jesus lives and breathes – he lives constantly in the Divine Awareness at the centre of his being.
And so the love Jesus commands is not so much a striving, but a recognition. It is to see the Eternal Divine I Am in all things and in all people. It is also to see this same Eternal Divine I Am dwelling in the depths of our own hearts. As Jesus says to the Jewish leaders who are interrogating him a few chapters before in John 10:34 “Do your own scriptures not say that you are gods” (in other words, you are Divine, Divinity dwells within you). Like Jesus, we too have been made to be expressions of the Divine Logos, the Divine Wisdom and Love that we see in the opening verses of John’s Gospel.
Jesus commandment to love one another as he has loved us is to to discover the Divine I Am dwelling within us, that flows up like a spring of water - welling up with eternal life love (John 4:14).
And so to love like Jesus is to see the world and other people with the eyes of Christ, the eyes of Divine Love, to see everything as an expression of the Divine Logos through which all things are created and come into being, that Divine Logos which is a light that enlightens every person coming into the world, shining upon and shining within every person even thought they may live in ignorance of it.
To love as Jesus has loved in John’s Gospel is also to be willing to take on the role of a servant, to be willing to identify with the least and the lowest, as Jesus does at the beginning of the chapter 13,when, even though he is the host of the meal, he takes off his outer garment and bends down to wash his disciples feet, even the feet of the enemy, Judas, the one he already knows is going to betray him.
To love as Jesus has loved in John’s Gospel is also ultimately also to be willing to suffer in the cause of love as Jesus was willing to do in his crucifixion. In John’s Gospel the Glory of Jesus is that even in his darkest hour he does not let himself be overcome by evil, but steadfastly continues to live in the awareness of Divine Love.
And that connects us with verse 32 which comes just before Jesus gives the disciples his new commandment when Jesus says: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him”
What exactly does he mean when he says “Now the Son of Man has been glorified,”?
As we have mentioned, Judas has just left. Betrayal has been set in motion. And yet, for Jesus, this is the hour of glory—not because suffering is good in itself, but because his love remains steadfast and unmoved and begins to shine brighter even in the face of betrayal. Glory, in John’s Gospel, is not splendour in the worldly sense, it is the shining forth of Divine Light through human vulnerability. It is the shining forth of Divine Love even as the depth of human darkness seems to be growing. This is the whole focus of John’s gospel: the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it – we know how this story is going to end.
In a world where it sometimes feels like darkness is growing again, where battle-lines are being drawn, where enemies are being more clearly defined we face a choice: Do we get drawn into the darkness, allowing ourselves to be overcome by it, allowing fear, darkness and hatred to creep into our own hearts and minds, narrowing our hearts and narrowing our love, or, do we hold onto the glory of Divine Love that shines unrelenting in the face of darkness and evil.
When darkness descends this is the time for true Divine Love to begin to shine within them.
Note how in our passage today in verse 33 Jesus addresses his disciples as “Little children.” It is a tender phrase. Not patronising, or condescending but intimate. On the one hand it might reminds us that the spiritual journey, is a return to childlike seeing, not childishness, but the openness of one who trusts the presence of God in all things. It is perhaps also an indication that the disciples still have some spiritual growing to do.
Jesus is leaving them, at least in physical form, but not in truth or in spirit. The whole of the Farewell Discourse of John’s Gospel from chapter 13-17 is an invitation to move into a new kind of relationship with Jesus. “I will not leave you orphaned,” he will later say. “Abide in me as I abide in you.” The spiritual path is to realise that Christ is not elsewhere, but can be discovered here and now, in the heart of the one who abides in Christ-like love.
But what is one to make of the words that follow on in verse 33 “Where I am going, you cannot come”? It sounds a little exclusionary. But in verse 36 we see that Jesus is speaking of a lack of readiness. “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.” (John 13:36). Where Jesus is going, is not so much a place, but rather a state of being. They may not be ready to enter fully into that state of being now, but one day they will. They are still like children on the spiritual path. They are only just beginning to learn the path of Christ-like love.
They may not be ready yet to truly love as Jesus loves, but the path of transformation will open to them, as they abide in Christ, as they practice his way, and as the Spirit awakens them to the Christ within. For such love is not ours to produce. It is already present. It is the very energy of God at the heart of being. To “love as I have loved you” is to awaken to the truth that there is only One Love, and it lives in and through all.
The Sufi poet Rumi once wrote: “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
And so this commandment should comes to us, not as a burden, but as an invitation to live from the centre, from that place where Christ and the soul are not two, but one. As Jesus will say later in John’s Gospel – “On that day you will know that I am in you and you are in me.” (John 14:20)
But for now, like little children who are still learning and who falter, fail and fall, like the disciples, we practice this way of Christ-like Love – and above all things we practice the art of abiding or resting in Christ for it is in abiding or resting in Christ that the fruit of Divine Love will begin to grow in our lives. Amen.
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