John 13 31-35 2004
Easter 5
John 13 31-35
May 9, 2004
“Love’s Reflection”
ESV John 13:34 “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. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Introduction: I’d like you to picture a little boy, who has obviously found a mud puddle, and has found it a very entertaining thing to play in – covered in mud from head to toe, it’s a picture of someone only a mother could love. She doesn’t love the mud, but she can see through the mud to the boy underneath. She might take a garden hose to wash him down before he come in, but she welcomes back her prodigal son, praying that it doesn’t happen again. We all think mothers are pretty special, they accept us just as we are, and help us to change for the better, and they love us always. (Jordan)
So how is it that mothers got to be that way? Did they go to a special school? Or did God simply make them that way? What is the source of this love? I don’t know. But I do know that the scripture tells us that the way we know someone is a Christian is by they way they love one another. Not just us, but all people will be able to recognize real love, and of all the things we are told to do, love one another – is both the hardest and the easiest thing to do. (Jordan)
The setting for our Gospel lesson is Maundy Thursday night, the Upper Room in Jerusalem. Jesus has washed the disciples’ feet, identified the one who will within hours betray him, and instituted the Lord’s Supper. And as a kind of last word, Jesus speaks: “A new command I give you: “Love one another, as I have loved you, so you must love one another” (v 34). This is the new command to which Jesus calls us. Of course, the Lord taught in the Old Testament, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18). So in one sense this command is not new. But it is new here because Jesus changes the wording. He’s changed the basis for love. He has fulfilled love. He has made it deeper, broader, fuller. No longer is it “Love your neighbor as yourself.” It is “Love one another as I have loved you.” With these words, “Love . . . “as I have loved you,” Jesus has given each of us an important, lifelong, critical task: to love one another with all the glory of total self-sacrifice. He has given us the full power to serve this way when we receive his love for us—the love of the true God that fastens Christ to a tree, that broke free from the tomb and now breaks every grave, and opens heaven for you, me, for rebellious sinners!
For us, this kind of love is often hard to do and express. It is hard, because often we only see what is on the outside – it’s as though we can see the "covered with mud" but not the boy underneath. Sometimes the people around us are hard to love. We may not like what they say or do, how they live their lives, work their work. We may not like their political or religious views and opinions. We might not even like the way they look or how they dress. In other words they may appear to us to be covered with mud, unapproachable, un-huggable, and un-loveable. Illustration: I think we can all picture a time when we saw a child literally dripping with mud and dirt, filthy beyond description, and I would dare say that must of us breathed a sigh of relief knowing that the child was not ours, that we didn’t have to take responsibility for taking care of them and cleaning them up. We are happy that we don’t have to get our own hands dirty. This is where a mothers love comes in. She may not like the dirt and the filth, but out of love and responsibility she tenderly grabs on to the child, getting dirty herself, and does what it takes to make him clean. Here the glory of motherhood finds its greatest expression. It is not at that proud moment when a child graduates or does something great, a mothers glories shine the most when she is willing to get muddy, dirty, by embracing her dirty child and claiming Him as her own.
Of course this is only a reflection of a greater love. It is the love of God for us. We might not be literally covered in mud, but we are covered with something that is far much worse. We are covered with sin; it stains every part of our lives, even here as we come into the presence of the Lord. But God sees through the sin, God sees someone his only Son suffered and died to save – and because Jesus loved us that much, that he died to save us, God also loves us, and in Jesus blood, he forgives and washes away our sin, and makes us a new creation, a child of God. That is the love of God, that not only does he see through our sin, but he embrace us with His love and stopped down to get dirty Himself, taking our sin stained dirt upon Himself on the cross to wash away our sin and make us clean. When we are lost, God finds us, and brings us home, he forgives us, he restores us, and he gives us his name to carry – we are his own. When we look at the love of God which is ours in Jesus Christ, we see a love that is enduring, forgiving, cleansing, restoring, growing, redeeming, and so much more. (Jordan)
Now having been loved in such a special way we hear our Saviors words, “even as I have loved you, love one another.” But God’s Spirit working in us we are able to do what only a mother could do, only what our Savior could do…approach the un-approachable, hug the un-huggable and love the unlovable. Through the power of God we are able to get dirty with each other. In other words we can get involved in the messiness of each others lives. Life is messy. It’s messy with sickness and death. It’s messy with sin and shame. Life is often soiled with disappointment and conflict. But through it all, as Christians we are embraced with the love of God and the assurance that are sins have been forgiven. With this knowledge we embrace each other in Christian love and remind each other that we are in this together. Together God will get us through.
As a result our Lord tells us that people will now that we are His disciples by the love that we have for one another and the forgiveness that we express towards each other, for this is how God’s love has been reflected towards us. Certainly the people around us can hear the faith that we confess with our lips, the actions of our lives reflect our God given faith.
Conclusion: How is love reflected and what is loves reflection? How will all men know we are disciples of our risen savior? It is reflected in God’s love for us. It is reflected in the sending of His Son to live and die on the cross for all people. It is reflected in the forgiveness that we now posses. It is reflected in how we love each other. It is reflected in a mother’s love that claims a child as her own, and gets dirty in the process of making him clean. This again reflects our Saviors great love for us, taking our stains upon Himself, washing us in His own blood and making us clean again. Our Lord speaks to us, ““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. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is loves reflection. Amen
