Manifested love, Pt 7: New command
John 13:34-35 34“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Mark 12:28-31 28One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” 29“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 30Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ 31The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Leviticus 19:18 18“ ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD.
On the surface at least there seems to be a contradiction in these verses: Jesus has said there is no commandment greater than loving God and loving our neighbor as ourselves, yet he is giving a new commandment. Further, the command to love our neighbor as ourselves is as old as the Mosaic Law. What’s going on?
A new commandment.
The disciples must have been very familiar with the Levitical command to love their neighbor as themselves, but there is a problem with this command in that it is given in relation to one’s own sense of value. We all understand our view of life and the world is skewed; it is filtered by our perception and sin nature. What we perceive is not real and thus is not truthful. You remember that game we played as kids when we whispered something in another’s ear, and he in another and so forth? What came out at the end was not recognizable. So loving others as we want to be loved is difficult because it is filtered at our end and at the other’s end. The love that comes back is not the same as what was sent. There must be a better way.
Love as I have loved.
In a few weeks we will be looking at John 15:9 which shows us that Jesus’ love of us is really the love of His Father for us given through Him. When Jesus says to “love others as I have loved you”, he is upping the ante quite a bit. In the Old Covenant, the Law was given to teach righteous living. It was a series of ‘do this’ and ‘do not do that’ instructions. Those instructions taught that righteousness could be gained through right living, but people found it difficult to do because of their sinful nature. With his arrival on Earth, Jesus is showing a new way of living based not on rules and regulations, but on relationship with him. Jesus is leading by example; he is saying it is not enough to love as we want to be loved, but to love like Jesus loved.
Jesus’ love was sacrificial. We are not expected to go to a physical cross, but certainly he wants us to love until it hurts. It doesn’t help to tell someone to ‘go be warm and well fed’ if you don’t help them do it. If you don’t help them how are you loving? We must be willing to part with time, money, and possessions in order to serve people.
Jesus’ love was caring. When the woman was caught in adultery Jesus didn’t condemn her like the Pharisees did. The crowd was getting ready to stone her! No, Jesus showed them that in their own way they were as guilty of sin as was she. Instead, he showed her the better way. People of all stations, old or young, rich or poor, Jew or Gentile—all flocked to him because he cared.
Jesus’ love was undiscriminating. He loved his friends and he loved is enemies. He washed Judas’ feet just hours before Judas betrayed him. The Jews hated the Samaritans yet Jesus ministered even to them. Many of those he loved and cared for later called for his crucifixion.
Jesus’ love was committed. Jesus loved but didn’t tolerate sin, deception or hypocrisy. He treated everyone with dignity and respect, but didn’t hesitate to rebuke them for their inconsistencies.
Show the world.
For the world to accept Godly values and precepts they have to want to. They have to realize those things lead to a better life. Preaching and teaching have value only to the degree that people recognize the better way. Loving like Jesus loved—accepting this new commandment—is one way of modeling this better way. Jesus wants the world to notice we are different. In most measurements the people of the Body of Christ are no different that the world. Divorce rates are hardly different. So what is to commend the Godly way to the world? The only way, the most important way, is to love unconditionally, just like Jesus does.
What about me?
A person might say, “No one can love like Jesus loved. He was God, and I am not. How can I love like God?” Well that’s true of course. We can’t love like God loves but we can try. But what does that mean exactly? We talked a little bit about the way Jesus loved, but for us it just means stepping out of ourselves. I have a friend who has this habit of making bad decisions; it would just anger me that he kept shooting himself in the foot in various ways. Then I realized it wasn’t that he was making bad decisions so much, but that he wasn’t making the decisions I would have made. It was my pride that was driving the anger.
The point is that we can’t change other people; we can only change ourselves. Loving others like Jesus loved means accepting them as frail human beings who do the best they can but often can’t get out of their own way. It is easy to love those who love us back, but loving difficult people is not easy. Most people aren’t intentionally mean, but it certainly is true that bad things occasionally happen to good people. Recently I have been going through a difficult time caused by situations completely out of my control. Several of my friends, who couldn’t do anything about it either, just sat with me, showing their love and understanding. They were sort of emotionally holding my hand. It made all the difference. Sometimes the thing to do is to do nothing but be present.
We all think we know the best way. Really, we only know the best way for us, and even that is questionable. The answer is to love others unconditionally. Ask yourself, “How can I show love to this person? What is it, within my power, that I can do for him?” Maybe it’s a cup of coffee. Maybe it’s holding his or her hand. Maybe it’s just sitting there. The way for that moment will come. Just listen.