Love One Another
John 13:34

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The text for this morning’s sermon is John 13:34: Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (ESV). Grace, mercy, and peace to you through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

“Love one another.” Doesn’t that phrase make you feel warm and peaceful? Christ calls us to live in love with one another, just as he loves us. Here in the church, in our families (hopefully), and to a lesser degree here in a small town we (often) experience that feeling of love. We give it to others, and they give it to us, with warm smiles, encouraging handshakes, and—in our families—the safe embraces of hugs. It’s a great feeling to love and to be loved. The question is, why did Jesus tell his disciples—why does Jesus tell us—to love one another as he has loved us? To find that answer, you don’t have to look very far. Ask yourself this: Where are you at your ugliest and meanest—with strangers or with those closest to you? It’s funny, isn’t it? We show our ugly side to the people closest to us, to those whom we love, but we don’t show it as much to strangers. And that is why Jesus commands us to love one another as he has loved us. Because you give offense, you treat your loved ones poorly, you think more highly of yourself than of people sitting around you in the pews. In short, you’ve got a lot of sins, and if the people around you did not bear with your sins and overlook them and forgive them, your ugliness would tear your family and your church apart. As Christ loved you by bearing your sins on the cross, so those around you are to love you by dealing with you patiently despite your sins, and you are to deal with them patiently despite their sins, because this is love.

You might not know it from the small bit of the Gospel we read, but Jesus spoke these words on the night when he was betrayed, on the night when he instituted the Lord’s Supper, on the night when he washed the disciples’ feet to show them the he came to serve them and they are likewise to serve one another. The chapter begins with these words: “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end” (John 13:1 ESV). This is the beginning of our Lord’s Passion in the Gospel of John, the beginning of the hours leading up to his death on the cross as the sacrifice that atones for the sins of the whole world. As Jesus says in this morning’s Gospel lesson, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him” (John 13:31 ESV). God the Father was glorifying Jesus by lifting him up on the cross to take the sins of the world away. Think about that for a moment. It was Jesus’ glory to die. It was Jesus’ glory to die for you. It was Jesus’ glory to die for you because you are a sinner, whose ugliness could so easily tear your family and your church apart. In a word, it was Jesus’ glory to save you, and it was the glory of God the Father to save you by giving up his only Son into death in order to reconcile you to himself. God’s glory and God’s love are inseparable. God showed his greatest glory in offering his only Son as the love offering that takes your sins away.

When Jesus says, “just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34 ESV), he is not talking about a warm, comforting feeling you have toward people you like. He is talking about the rock solid, hard-as-nails determination to win back people who are unloving and unlovable. He is talking about pursuing people who walk away from him, showing kindness to people who mock him, giving health to people who spit in his face and whipped his back until it bled. He is talking about giving life to people who killed him. And I am not talking about the Jewish leaders. I am talking about you, because it was your sins that nailed Jesus to the cross. It was your ugliness that mocked him. It was your meanness that spit at him and whipped him and hung him on the cross. After all, he did not die simply for the sinners who were there that day. He died for you and for me. “Love caused [his] incarnation, love brought [him] down to me” (“O Lord, How Shall I Meet You,” LSB 334, st. 4). “Love to the loveless shown that they might lovely be” (“My song Is Love Unknown,” LSB 430, st. 1). That’s you, my dear friends, the loveless to whom God showed his love by offering his Son Jesus on the cross to bring you back to himself. This is not a feeling. As the title of one book on marriage says, Love is a Verb. Love is an action. Love is a decision. Christ’s love for you is the decision to die for you, even though you spit in his face and whipped his back and hung him on the cross. Christ’s love is his act of sacrifice for you at the very moment when you were his enemy.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34 ESV). Do you see now why Jesus had to give us this commandment? What does our world know of love? What do our hearts know of love apart from the work of the Spirit? By nature we sinful human beings know only love that seeks a return, love for those who love us, love that ends when it is spit upon and disrespected. That is what you and I know of love left to ourselves, and that love is one that grows impatient, can’t bear very long with little offenses and little sins, and gives up. But Paul tells us, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7 ESV). This is the love to which your Savior calls you, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ. He does not say, “Love as best you can.” He does not say, “Love until there is no love left.” He does not say, “Love until you don’t get any love back.” He says, “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (John 13:34 ESV). If your friends at school turn on you and tell lies about you, don’t return the favor by putting them down and making fun of them. If your brother or sister steals your favorite gadget or invades your space, ask for it nicely and don’t hold it against him or her. If your wife wakes up on the wrong side of the bed and gets a little grouchy, return her good for evil. If your husband gets a little preoccupied with himself and his problems and stops thinking about you, show him the love he is not showing you. If your children misbehave and get disrespectful, discipline them without making it personal, and be sure to let them know that you love them by your words and your actions. “Love covers all offenses” (Proverbs 10:12 ESV). “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” (1 John 4:20-21 ESV).

Are you up to this challenge? No, you’re not. That is why you must first receive our Lord’s love before you can love as he loved. “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19 ESV). Our confirmands do not come to the altar today to confess their faith so that God will accept them. They love God now because God first loved them when he sent Jesus Christ to die for them and take their sins away, and because the Holy Spirit called them into the faith through the waters of baptism and the good news of our risen Savior. What they have done today is not an act of love that gains God’s love for them; it is an act of love toward God that flows out of their hearts because God has put his love into their hearts in the first place. When you overlook the unkind word a fellow member of church says in a heated moment, when you bear with your spouse’s weaknesses and moodiness, when you forgive the person who has sinned against you, this is not from you. It is from our heavenly Father, whose love flowed into your heart when he adopted you as his own dear child in Holy Baptism. It is from our heavenly Father, whose love flows into your ears and then into your heart when you hear the good news of our risen Savior preached here in church and when you read it in personal devotions. It is from our heavenly Father, whose love flows into your mouth and then into your heart when you receive the body and blood of our Savior Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. He is a rich and overflowing fountain of love, always able to fill you with far more love than you can hold, and always willing to pour out far more love than you need. Because he loves you, he fills you with his love, so that—however imperfectly this side of heaven—you love others as Christ has loved you.

Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another” (ESV). This is a commandment, and you and I are to strive to follow it, even when it is difficult. At the same time, this commandment is based on God’s own love toward you. “Walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:2 ESV). In Christ’s love, your ugliness and meanness are covered over and forgiven, and in his love, you learn to love others despite their ugliness and meanness as well. Amen.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia!

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.