If you love me…. – John 14:15-21

Last week we heard the disciples ask Jesus two questions: Where was Jesus going that they might know the way and to show them the Father so that they might know him as they knew Jesus. Now remember that before Jesus shared this with the disciples, he had already given them a new commandment – one that he had never shared with them before.  All this was his way of preparing them for what was going to happen in the next few days.  Remember that everything Jesus is sharing with the disciples at this moment is critical to what will happen after his death and resurrection, but the disciples are still truly unaware of the significance of Jesus’ words. They have heard the prophecies of Jesus, but they still cannot imagine a time when he will not be with them.

So the disciples have been given a new commandment: to love one another as Jesus has loved them. A simple enough request but one that will be challenging to them as they take responsibility for sharing the good news that Jesus shared with them and encourage people to follow the Way of Jesus that they might discover the Truth that came through Jesus from the Father and so receive the promised Life that Jesus’ sacrificial death and resurrection brings. Jesus knew that mere words would never convince anyone to follow the path of faith that would lead people to worship God in spirit and in truth. Jesus knew that the physical actions, the interaction, what was communicated by sight and touch would have a greater impact than what was heard. That was the challenge that faced those first disciples who became the first apostles of the movement that would first be known as the Way.  And that is the challenge that has ever been the hardest for any followers of Jesus from that time and even today.

As humans we struggle with our emotions often finding that they direct us to act in ways that are in fact a betrayal of what Jesus has asked us to do.  We interpret the words of Jesus in different ways believing that our interpretation is the correct one and judging others whose interpretation does not match with ours.  Too often such differences have led us to stop loving one another and actively persecuting one another.   Even the leaders of the early church struggled to love one another as they found themselves dividing over whether the faith should remain with the Jewish people – the Chosen people of God – or be gifted to the wider world.

The point I am trying to make is that everything that Jesus shared with the disciples that is recorded in the Gospel of John from chapter 14 through to the end of chapter 17 hinges on their willingness to love one another as Jesus loved them.  If the Master whom they have come to love takes the position of a servant and performs the most menial of tasks – washing their feet – it is a sign to them that his love for them had nothing to do with power, authority or control. It was a real and deep love – a desire that none of them be lost or come to feel abandoned.  The love that brought Jesus to this earth, that led him through all his interactions with the disciples and others in the land, that would lead him to the cross and would bring him back from the dead, and to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house, that was the love that he wanted them to have for one another – a love that nothing in heaven or earth could break apart.  That is the first challenge for every believer throughout time.

The second challenge comes in today’s passage where Jesus begins by saying: “If you love me, you will keep – or as other translations have it, keep – my commandments.  And what are Jesus’ commandments. Well, we know the one about loving one another as Jesus loved them. The other two are what Jesus said as a summation of the law of God: Love the Lord God with all your heart, and with all your mind, and with all your strength, and with all your soul – which really means that every part of our being is to love God. And the second is like the first, says Jesus. Love your neighbour as yourself – which really means to love our neighbour with the same love we would have for ourselves, every part of our being.  Of course, here’s the rub.  Many of us have trouble loving ourselves so it’s no surprise that we have trouble loving our neighbours and loving God.  Too often we believe that we are unlovable or at least we struggle to accept that we can be loved by God or one another.

But that’s the challenge.  That’s the mission.  Whatever we say, whatever we do, wherever we go – it is about sharing and living a real love for God, a real love for neighbour and a real love for ourselves as we strive to love one another and so reveal that we are disciples of Jesus.  The world can only truly come to know the One we believe and follow when we are willing and able to show what it truly means to be Jesus’ disciples: love for one another.

Jesus is counting on the love of the disciples. He is counting on the disciples having the trust and courage to show their love for one another by keeping his commandments.

Only then does Jesus even say that he will ask the Father for an Advocate for them – one who will guide them, strengthen them and help them to find the words they need to continue his mission.  And the Spirit of Truth that will come is already known to the disciples because that Spirit has dwelt with them as they have dwelt with Jesus and the Father.  But for that Spirit to remain with them requires their love of Jesus and their commitment to keep the commandments of Jesus.

Jesus’ desire is that the message he has brought from God will live on in the hearts and lives of the people who have chosen to believe and that they do so out of a true devotion, a true love for the One who shared this with them. For the disciples to keep the commandments out of fear would have been to keep God as a cold, detached tyrant whose intention was to rule their lives with judgment and condemnation – constantly looking for ways to shame them and devalue them.  Rather the disciples were to keep the commandments out of love, emulating as close as they could the love with which Jesus loved them and others. In this way they would be able to reveal to others in the world that God is not a cold, detached tyrant seeking for people to fail but a God who is kind and tender-hearted, an involved caregiver whose intention is to have us discover and live lives that will bring peace, healing, hope and restoration to us in mind, body and spirit.

Love is what motivated God to create; love is what motivated God to come in Christ; love is what motivated Jesus’ ministry; and our response to that love is to let our love for God, our love for the neighbour, for ourselves and for one another motivate us in our life within this community of faith and in the wider community of the world in which we live.

AMEN