A pastor friend of mine once made a provocative statement about the church. He said, “It may be the body of Christ, but it’s also a food chain!” Wow. Is that offensive? Too strong? Or on target?
Jesus and His disciples are gathered for the Passover meal. In only about eighteen hours, the body of Jesus will hang dead on a rough-hewn cross. But for now, they are in an upper room, gathered to share Passover together. Jesus knows that the storm is about to burst upon them. In fact, He realizes that a storm is already raging within their community. They are like an angry family entertaining guests and trying to appear as though all is well. The disciples try to hide their tension from Jesus. But hiding something like that from His all-seeing gaze is just not possible. Judas arrives with a secret plan to betray Jesus, so there’s a traitor in the camp, a traitor with a deadly secret. Then, as the meal is set to begin, every single disciple refuses to stoop and wash the feet of the others. Too proud? Maybe. Too fearful of being viewed as less than? Likely.
While they recline at the table, Jesus says, “One of you will betray me.” According to Luke, it’s right after Jesus says that that the “food chain” becomes evident among them. “I’m the greatest!” they whisper. Suspicion also begins—“It’s not me. Must be you!” Peter weighs in with the strongest statement: “Even if everybody else betrays you, I will not! I’m ready to die for you—that’s how much I love you, and that will show everyone just how loyal I am!” Jesus’ response? “Really? You’ll die for me, Peter?! Actually, before the night’s over, you will have denied three times that you even know me!”
Denial and fear and anger and lust for supremacy—those are just a few of the emotions and inclinations swirling around in this community. Simply put, the air was filled with every kind of emotional experience guaranteed to obliterate community. And then, right in the middle of it all, Jesus says something that we can’t afford to miss. He makes a statement that gives them—that gives us—the basis for all true community. And it’s that statement over which we will linger today This passage comes right after Judas leaves the upper room. In fact, the verse that immediately precedes this passage says, “As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night” (John 13:30, TNIV). And then this passage will begin with the words “When he was gone . . .” (John 13:31, TNIV). While the stench of betrayal still hangs in the air as our passage begins. It’s what’s at the middle of the passage that interests us today.
Read John 13:31–38. Jesus’ new command to “love others as I have loved you” is buried right in the heart of a passage where two of His inner circle are about to betray him and deny Him. It’s right in the heart of a passage filled with things guaranteed to fracture community. In other words, the very reality that will create the deepest and truest community is spoken of right in the context of a broken community. That means that this command to love one another is not an antiseptic command that has no contact with our realities or with our brokenness. Rather, it is found right at the heart of broken community. And there, at the heart of broken community, Jesus says, “Love each other as I have loved you.”
He says it is a new command. How is it a new command? After all, the command to love others is as old as the early parts of the Old Testament. The newness of this command is found in its standard. In the previous commands to love, the standard is healthy self-love: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In this command, the standard is the love of Jesus for us. “Love each other as I have loved you.”
Notice three aspects of this command to “love one another.”
1. In the community of Christ followers, love is not an option. It is a command. Here’s what Jesus says: “A new command I give you: Love one another.” In other words, it’s not something we can opt out of. There may be many other options in the Christian life—what songs we sing in worship, what ministries we choose to engage, how we dress when we come to church. But this command is not an option. And it is precisely because He loves us that He can command us to love one another.
2. In the community of Christ followers, love is not a feeling. Did you notice? “Love one another as I have loved you.” Do you know what that love is going to require of Jesus? It’s going to require that while the disciples sleep, He agonizes in Gethsemane. It’s going to require that while the disciples flee, He subjects Himself to arrest. It’s going to require that while the disciples hide, He staggers down the Via Dolorosa under the burden of the cross. It’s going to require that while they watch from a distance, He cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” So when He says, “Love one another as I have loved you,” He’s not asking you to feel all warm and fuzzy toward the person sitting down the pew from you who, just before you entered the sanctuary, took your parking spot. He’s not asking you to get all choked up with emotion at the Sabbath School teacher who never remembers your name. In fact, He’s not asking you or me to feel anything at all. He’s just asking us to act with love in the same way that He did.
3. In the community of Christ followers, love cannot be hidden. Jesus says, “By this will everyone know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” Love, then, is the virtue that draws this community together, that makes it safe and real and lasting. And love will be both the supreme and the identifying characteristic of the body of Christ. Can you imagine the ethos of this church if we could honestly say that that is what characterized us?!
It reminds me of the little girl who prayed, “Dear Jesus, make all the bad people good, and all the good people nice.” When love is placed where it belongs, people become nice! And when people are nice, others feel accepted. And when they feel accepted, they blossom and grow. And when they blossom and grow, lives are changed. And when lives are changed, people make amends for the ways in which they’ve hurt others. And when people make amends for past hurts, relationships are reconciled. And when relationships are reconciled, the church truly becomes a healthy body— the body of Christ. And when the body of Christ functions as a healthy community, people say, “I want to be a part of that! I want to know the God that you know! I want to have what you have!” And it all began because of the simple fact that love was set free in the church—free to do its work. And because it was, we soon discover that the church is filled with people—filled with Christ followers—who live generous lives.
Love is not an option; it’s a command. Love is not a feeling; it’s an action. Love cannot be hidden. It will change everything and everyone will know it!
Randy Roberts, DMin, LMFT, is the senior pastor of the Loma Linda University Church and vice president of Spiritual Life and Mission, Loma Linda University Health, Loma Linda, CA, USA.
