"Power to Love"
John 14:15-21
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments."
Do you remember the setting in which
Jesus said those words? It was the night
before he would die, when the darkness of the world was closing in. Jesus had gathered his closest friends to
share a final meal. Rising from the table, he took a towel, wrapped it around
him, and washed his disciples’ feet.
Then, after telling his disciples that
one of them would betray him, he says, “I give you a new commandment, that you
love one another as I have loved you….By this everyone will know you are my
disciples, if you have love for one another.”
We have in this section of John, in a
nutshell, Jesus’ own definition of what it means to be his disciple.
In today’s gospel lesson we hear Jesus
say, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” We need to remember what
Jesus said earlier that evening about his commandments: “This is my commandment,
that you love one another as I have loved you….This I command you, that you love
one another.” We need to remember that,
in the gospel of John, Jesus only gives his disciples one commandment: “Love
one another. Love one another as I have loved you.”
So that’s it: that’s the commandment Jesus is talking
about. Love one another. All of Jesus’ other teachings about how to
live are a fleshing out of this commandment… and showing his disciples then and
now how the commandment to love is worked out in our day to day living.
John wrote his gospel long after Jesus
was gone. The gospel is written looking backwards,
in the midst of a community for whom Jesus was only a memory. Most of the people in John’s community had
never met Jesus. Most—if not all—of the
disciples were dead. The Temple in
Jerusalem had been destroyed—which a lot of folk thought was a sign that the end-time
would come son.
But the end-time didn’t come. Life went on, and that was, in some ways, the
hardest part of all. Even when all the
signs seemed right, Jesus hadn’t come back.
This community of believers felt pushed to the very edge of despair and
defeat.
So, John pulled together many of the
things Jesus said into this one section of the Gospel we know as “The Farewell
Discourse.” Here at the table, we hear
Jesus say some of the same things over and over, in different ways, to make
sure the disciples get it. The central word is love. “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments.” “I give you a new
commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” “Whoever does not love me does not keep my
words.” “I am giving you these commands
so that you may love one another.” The word used
here for love—agape—describes
the kind of love that Jesus showed us: self-giving love that seeks the good of
the other, generous, sacrificial love.
I imagine the disciples must have wondered, “But how
can we do that?” They knew they had a
hard time loving each other even while Jesus was with them. Jesus has been telling them that he is going
to leave them. How could they love in
the Jesus loves-- if he’s gone?
That night, the disciples haven’t yet
seen the depths of Jesus’ love for them—a love that would lead to the cross and
the tomb, that would tear him away
from them. That night, they couldn’t have guessed that they would lose him twice:
that after his death, he would return in the glory of resurrection, and then be
taken from their sight in the ascension. That night, they were still basking in
his physical presence as he began the long farewell talk that we hear continued
in today’s gospel.
Knowing that they have come to depend on
his presence, Jesus wants to reassure his disciples. Before he goes away, he
tells them, "I will not leave you orphaned."
If that seems an odd phrase to use with
these adults, consider that the word John’s gospel uses for "orphan"
means "torn away from."
Of course, they would have each other. Jesus had told them to love each other—but I
wonder just how comforting that was. Each of the disciples must have known in
his heart how hard it is to love the way Jesus
loves.
If we could just love God and love one
another as Jesus loves, there wouldn’t be any need for any other commandments
or laws or rules. But that commandment
to love is a tall order.
Given the realities of our lives and the
realities of the people we live and work with—how do we find it possible to
obey this commandment to love? In this
world we live in, given all the people we encounter who are different from us,
and who don’t value the same things we do, how do we love as Jesus loves?
God knows—it isn’t easy. The truth that Jesus wants us to live by—the
truth of love—is a love that the rest of the world can’t understand or make
sense of. It’s a love that makes us different.
We don’t always live up to this truth.
We sometimes fall short of the kind of love that Jesus wants us to show in our
lives. Throughout history, we see examples of how Christians
have failed to live up to the love to which Jesus calls us.
Love
is at the heart of what Jesus commands us to do. Love. That’s what the Holy Spirit works to
make possible in each of our lives. Love
not just for our families, not just for our friends, not just for people that
we like. No, love even for our enemies.
That’s the kind of love that God is calling us toward.
This kind of love to which Jesus calls
us is hard. We can’t do it alone. It’s humanly impossible. But Jesus promises that we won’t be
alone. “I will ask the Father, and he
will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world
cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and
he will be in you.”
The Greek word translated as
"advocate" — "paracletos", or Paraclete —means "one
called alongside, to help."
I like the way David Lose puts it: “You
have an advocate! Someone who is looking out for you. Someone who is on your
side. Someone who encourages you and supports you. Someone who speaks up for
you and is willing to hang in there with you through thick and thin.”[1]
Friends, it’s hard to love one another,
in the way Jesus loves. It’s hard to be generous and brave and
compassionate--especially when you’re afraid or you feel like nobody hears you
or you feel alone or abandoned or left out.
But the good news is that God is with us
and has come to us in Christ to show us what God wants for us: health and
healing…love and belonging and community… justice and peace…and a life of abundance.
God came in Christ to show us how far
God is willing to go to show us how much God loves us. God raised Jesus from
the dead to show us that goodness is stronger than evil and love is stronger
than death.
God keeps coming to us in the Holy
Spirit to encourage us and guide us and care for us and walk with us, to be our
Advocate. Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will come to us with truth, with
gifts, and the power to be faithful disciples.
The Spirit will be with us, helping us, giving us the power to love.
Thanks be to God!
Rev. Fran Hayes,
Pastor
Littlefield
Presbyterian Church
Dearborn, Michigan
May 21, 2017
[1]
David Lose, “You have an advocate.” Posted at his blog, In the Meantime, at http://www.davidlose.net/2017/05/easter-6-a-you-have-an-advocate/
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