Jesus commands us to love one another.

Our first reading tonight contains one of the best-known verses in the bible; Jesus command to his disciples to “Love each other as I have loved you”. It’s a verse that we’ve all heard, and which we all believe to be important, I hope, yet we all struggle to put it into practice. I want to suggest tonight that it is possibly the most important command that we have from Jesus. I want to suggest that if we took it seriously, if we concentrated on obeying this command, it would transform the church.

The reading comes from John’s account of Jesus conversations with the disciples at the last supper. John the gospel writer was there, almost certainly, because it is believed, with good evidence that this gospel was written by the apostle John. Jesus spoke these words immediately before his own arrest, trial, torture and crucifixion, and the night of the last supper would have been the last time that John had seen Jesus before the crucifixion. Jesus knew what was going to happen and this reading is full of that knowledge.

Jesus knows he is going to die. He has spent about three years with the apostles, training them to be his disciples, to understand his message of the kingdom of God, to understand the good news of God’s love, of God’s forgiveness, of God’s call to live a new way. He knows he will not be with them for much longer, although they are blissfully ignorant of the fact. Jesus is doing two things, he’s reminding them of his love, but he’s also preparing them for life without him. He’s reminding them of the most important things that they must remember when he is gone.

We have never lived with the human Jesus. We never went on the physical and spiritual journey that those apostles went on, but like them we have to live Jesus way without the physical presence of Jesus to guide and advise and to warn. We are not like those disciples who went through the persecutions that Jesus describes in this reading, but the words that Jesus says to his disciples apply just as much to us today.

So, what does Jesus tell us in this passage? I want to suggest that Jesus gives us a command, a warning and a promise.

The first point that Jesus makes is that loving each other as he loves us is a command. It’s not a recommendation, it’s not a suggestion. It’s not ‘it would be really nice if you loved each other; it’s a command, and Jesus makes the point twice, once in verse 12 when he says “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you” and once in verse 17 when he says “This is my command: Love each other.”. Other translations translate verse 17 slightly differently; “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” The point is that those two references to commands bookend everything that comes in between.

So, what comes between? Well a number of statements. The first is this: “Greater love has no one than this; to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” It’s a description of the type of love that we must have. We often associate this statement, ‘Greater love has no man that he lay down his life’, with war memorials and military remembrance.

I’ve long been uncomfortable with that. It’s not that I want to diminish what our soldiers sacrificed during two world wars, and other wars that have followed, but I’ve been uncomfortable associating this verse with war, and death and killing, because it wasn’t written with that in mind. It was said by Jesus to his disciples in a very different context. But actually, I think it’s more appropriate to link this verse with what soldiers experience and sacrifice than we might think.

Although I’ve never served myself, I grew up in an army family with a soldier father who had a great love of history which he passed on to me. One thing that becomes apparent as you read the experience of soldiers is that the thing soldiers are most willing to lay down their lives for isn’t their God, queen and country, but for their friends. Their mates, who they have trained with and lived with, and eaten with, and laughed with and mourned with. It is this comradeship, this camaraderie that maintains them during the difficulties of training and combat, and I wonder how powerful our ministry would be if we had comradeship like that as a church. It’s love, and its exactly the type of love that Jesus is talking about in this passage.

Jesus is talking about the ultimate love that he is about to display by dying for them. Jesus will lay down his life for them (and us) out of his love for humanity. Equally they will be called to lay down their lives for him, and for each other. We are still commanded to do that today

This ultimate love must include all the lesser loves. We're not called to not really care about each other right up until we are called to die for each other, and then, suddenly be willing to die. We are called to live lives of love and service towards each other, so that when we are called to die for each other, if we ever are, this is a natural consequence of the relationship we already have with each other.

The importance of this is reinforced by Jesus next statement, which is a warning; Jesus says; “You are my friends if you do what I command you”, which is to love each other. Our friendship with Jesus is conditional on our relationship with each other; we show our love to God through our love for each other. We aren’t always easy to love, even in a church as friendly as St. Andrews. We don’t get to choose our fellow Christians, Jesus does, and to be frank he chooses some rum people who aren’t always easy to love. That’s why love is so important. Its not easy love, it’s hard, and costly and sacrificial.

So that’s the command and the warning. Love each other as Jesus has commanded, and you are his friends if you do as he has commanded. Jesus third point is a promise; Jesus says; “I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit..., so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.”

There is a reason for this command to love each other. It is not just because it is a good thing to do, and because in being loving we are being like Jesus. Love comes with a purpose, not just for the sake of it. Its purpose is to bear fruit. That fruit might be fruit in our own lives; our becoming more like Christ as we commit ourselves to loving those around us, our becoming more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient; all the fruits of the spirit. But is much, much more than that; we will bear fruit as a church, we will bear fruit in the community around us, we will bear fruit in attracting people to our community.

Because I’m not suggesting that we are not doing these things. I’m not telling us off for not being loving, I’m trying to encourage us to go further. At a time when most churches are struggling for growth, God is calling people to St Andrews; not just people who are transferring membership to St. Andrews from their existing churches, but people coming back to church after not having been to church for many years or never really having been to church at all. What has attracted many of them has been the friendliness at St Andrew’s, the welcome, the love, the sense of God’s presence in peoples relationships with each other,

Jesus commands us to love each other, because that’s what we need to do to bear fruit, bear fruit so that the Father will give us whatever we ask in Jesus name. I wonder what prayers would we ask of God, if our primary, if our exclusive, motivation was love for our friends. This passage reminds me of what I have come to believe is a key phrase in the bible. It’s also from the gospel of John and comes just a chapter or two earlier. It’s this; “By this shall everyone know you are my disciples, that you love one another” .

I don’t think we are known for that, I think we are known for not being that, although I think that’s often unfair. Our love for each other must be real, but it must be visible. Just how attractive would Christianity seem if what we were most famous for was the degree of love we have for our friends, particularly if our understanding of who our friends are was wide, and inclusive and expansive and not judgemental of individuals. If we welcomed the weakest and most vulnerable, and least hygienic and treated them as of equal value as ourselves.

Let’s try and do that, in the power and strength of Jesus, and lets pray that we might become the church we should be, the church that Jesus died on the cross to build, the church that Jesus commissioned in that upper room, the night before his death when he spoke with his disciples that last night.