Something New
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:34–35
It is kind of hard to wiggle out of Jesus’ direct commandment for us to love one another. The Latin phrase used for this poignant moment in the telling of Jesus’ last hours on earth is mandatum novum, literally translated, new command. It is the story most churches in Christendom tell on this day that we call Maundy Thursday.
You may think one of the apostles might have piped up and said, “Um, Jesus, don’t we have enough commands? I mean really. The Ten Commandments are hard enough, but here You go adding an eleventh.” Yet of course, Jesus’ point was to promote the most important commandment. You can obey all of the “Big Ten” and still not love one another. Perhaps the only real way to obey any of the commandments is for our obedience to grow out of love for each other.
Whenever I officiate at a wedding, I take notice that the response of the couple in the liturgy that I use is not “I do,” but “I will.” What is the difference? “I do” usually implies “I always will,” but is that possible? Many of the couples I marry have broken some part of their vows to love, honor and cherish before the wedding reception is over.
A realistic hope is not that perfection will exist, but the will to get to that place of perfection is always there. Thus, “I will” is possible; “I do” is not. Why?
What if, in marriage, the relationship depended upon what you did, rather than who you were and what you meant to the other? Would it not mean a lifetime of walking on eggshells? Healthy relationships are not grounded in an unrealistic expectation of perfection, but a love of the other, with the hope that love will bear the fruit of right actions. In short, a wedding does not a marriage make; it is a daily loving commitment in the presence of God that makes the marriage. The fruit of that love will be loving actions toward the other. The same is true of any relationship, and perhaps that is what Jesus was trying to knock into the heads of those apostles before he began his journey toward the Cross.
Christianity begins with relationship. God loves us because of who we are, not what we do. God’s love is that of a parent toward a child. Our peace, life, and salvation in this life and the life to come are not dependent on our end of the equation. It is found on God’s end, God’s initiative, God’s mercy. Our only appropriate response can be, like grace and faith, to receive.
There is an interesting line in the book of Hebrews that may speak to this tension between how we live, love and obey all at the same time. The author writes, “For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.” (Hebrews 10:14) This lays out the interesting paradox of the “one sacrifice,” which is of course the death of our Lord on the Cross for “the sins of the whole world.”[1] It is our embrace of that price paid on our behalf that makes us perfect in God’s eyes. Jesus is the lens through which God sees us. Yet notice, as the Hebrews passage acknowledges, while Jesus “has perfected” (a compound verb that describes a condition — here, perfection), His followers are also being “sanctified” (a compound verb that describes a process — here, sanctification, or the process of being made holy).
Thus, perfect indeed, but at the same time in the process, a kind of ongoing work of being made Holy. We are in this relationship with God not because of what we do, but who we are: the objects of God’s love. That love, in return, brings about our obedience.
A Christian’s morality begins with relationship — an embrace of God’s love, which grows within us a love that embraces the other. “By this, others will know you are with me,” Jesus said, “that you love each other.” Perhaps it was another way of saying, “You can obey all the commandments you want, but if you do not love each other, then what difference does obedience make?”
As with deep friendships and marriages, depth often determines strength and breadth. I thank God my wife does not demand my perfection as a price for the love she gives. If she did, I would not make the cut. I thank God for good friends who love me in the same way. Thank God, he does not demand my perfection as a price for the love he gives; I would not make that cut either. God’s love given should awaken a desire to love in return. With God’s help, and with that awakening, we can begin the process toward not only being the husband, wife, friend, or child one should be, but the Christian as well.
What Jesus offered on that first Maundy Thursday was something new. Of course, He had been saying it in lots of ways over a number of years in so many places, but the message had not been given that way before, thus the choice of this night, this moment, clearly meant it was, perhaps, the most important farewell address of all.
So, well then, indeed — love one another.
A Question to Ponder
How do you experience God’s love? How do you share it?
A Prayer
“My God, I desire to love thee perfectly, with all my heart which thou madest for thyself, with all my mind which only thou canst satisfy, with all my soul which fain would soar to thee, with all my strength, my feeble strength, which shrinks before so great a task, and yet can choose naught else but spend itself in loving thee. Claim thou my heart, fill thou my mind, uplift my soul, and reinforce my strength, that where I fail thou mayest succeed in me, and make me love thee perfectly. Amen.”
Father Walter Howard Frere, d. 1938
[1] John 1:29.
