Two Letters
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 13:31-35
May 17, 2019, Words By: Lina Thompson, Image By: Street Psalms
One Sunday morning, on my way to preach, I found myself thinking about two things: The Resurrection, and my car’s brakes. No kidding. It was becoming obvious that a visit to the mechanic was imminent. “It’s going to have to wait until Monday,” I told myself.
Yet even as I got up to the pulpit, I found myself thinking not about an empty tomb, but about an expensive brake job. Amidst shouts of “He Is Risen!” I was thinking about something completely mundane.
“As I have loved you.”
The truth is, that’s our lives isn’t it? “He is Risen indeed!” We cry on Sunday, and mean it… But Monday is always coming.
How are we to live our everyday lives in light of the Risen one? What difference does it make? What changes? What is new?
Two letters. That’s it.
Of all the words that Jesus spoke to his disciples, this one is my favorite. It’s a small word, but it says everything: ‘AS’. “AS I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”
If we are looking for what is different or new post-Resurrection, it is this: The way that we love one another is different. We love AS Jesus did.
It turns out this little two-letter word is a deeply theological word. In it is the mystery of the incarnationーthe word made flesh. The word made human. The Word AS human.
In this week’s lectionary text, Jesus experiences the pain of betrayal from one friend and anticipates the denial of friendship by another.
Those are two very painful relationship experiences in Jesus’ life. Real pain. Human pain. And sandwiched in the middle of those two realities, the new command Jesus gives is to loveーto love AS Jesus did.
Love AS Jesus
Earlier in John chapter 13 we read, “He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet.” Later said to them, “You should do AS I have done to you.”
“AS Jesus loves” means love is not subjective. It is concrete and embodied.
“AS Jesus loves” challenges the transactional ways we relate to one another.
“AS Jesus loves” means love is transformational. We surrender our grabs for power and posture, and instead position ourselves as servants to one another.
“AS Jesus loves” means opening our tables even to those we might consider enemies who might cause us harm.
Eastertide
The Eastertide season (7 weeks after the Resurrection) encourages us to be intentional about the ways we live in light of the Resurrection. Eastertide challenges us to live into newness. This text grounds that newness in loving as Jesus did.
Loving like this identifies us as His.
Loving like this could be all the evangelism we’ll ever need.
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