"Love," what does it look like? John 13: 31-3

Grace, mercy, and Peace to you from God our Father and from our Risen Lord, Jesus Christ: Amen!

            Throughout this week, I have been thinking about the word “love.” I could have started the sermon off with the famous words from the Beatles, “All you need is love…” I could pull out all kinds of song lyrics about love and that could be fun. We could spend the entire service singing about love and most times we do. We sing about God’s love for us and all the things that God has done for us. And that is a good thing and I think we need to remind ourselves of God’s love for us.

            The more I thought about “love,” the more I was drawn to one statement by Jesus. It is the statement “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. How is this a new commandment? We know Jesus to be the Son of God, Amen? We know that it is God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, Jesus, into the world, “not to condemn the world but so that the world might be saved,” Amen? Right out of John 3:16. So this love doesn’t seem new.

We know love from the 10 Commandments. We know this idea of “love” throughout scripture. In Deuteronomy (5:10). “god is a jealous God and showing God “steadfast love” will be shown to the 10,000^th generation who love God and keep God’s commandments. In Leviticus 19:18, God commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. So this concept, this command to love is not a new idea or concept!

But there is something new in Jesus’ commandment. This “new commandment” Jesus gives is different than before. It is different in the sense of who Jesus is. In our Gospel of John, we know that Jesus is the Son of God. The Gospel begins with “in the beginning was the Word…” and the Word became flesh, That’s Jesus, God in the flesh! The new thing is that God is in the world through Jesus Christ. Jesus is in the world and revealing who God is in the world; that God is caring, forgiving, and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…there is that word again!

To put it another way, Jesus goes through the world and does many things. By the Son of God being in the world, the people of Jesus’ time learn what it means to love God. Jesus does some amazing things throughout his ministry. He calls disciples to follow and they do. His journey in the world takes him to places where he will heal. He meets people that are, to put it plainly, outcasts in society. He spends time telling them how God cares for them; and shows them by healing and sharing meals. He shows the disciples and others through his, Jesus’, words and actions that God is patient. He spends a lot of time trying to teach the disciples and others that God wants people to be fed, literally and spiritually (more than 5,000). And, he teaches and shows the disciples and others…and us that God is merciful; by showing us all that God’s Son is going to go to the cross for us.

What is “new” about this commandment is that Jesus is telling and showing us that love is not just words. He is teaching and showing us all what loving one another looks like. He is saying that if we believe that Jesus is the Son of God and we want to follow Jesus and love God, then “loving” calls us into words and action. Jesus is our example of what it means to love God. Loving means that if there is someone who needs prayer, then we make ourselves available to pray with and for that person(s). Loving means that when one of our brothers and sisters in Christ is struggling we try to help as best as we can.

It also means that we get into the trenches and get ourselves a little dirty. Loving means that we feed, literally and spiritually, whenever we can; much like we do in Victor’s Vittles. We don’t keep the Word of God for ourselves. We share it with others to let all God’s children know that we and they are cared for. Loving means that when we see our youngest of God’s creation struggling…when there is NO SENSE of hope, we bring God’s Good News of Hope into their lives because it will and does affect us all.

Love means that we show and share God’s mercy with one another. When others make mistakes, we share God’s forgiveness that we would expect for us, and forgive. Today we have a baptism. Brad and Ashley are bringing Emmet to be washed in the waters of Baptism. As they share their love for Emmet, we are witnesses and reminded of how we all have been washed and made clean and loved by the God who will never let go of Emmet or us. Love means that we promise to support this family through good times and times of struggle. We lift each other up and live out this new commandment that Jesus gives; to love one another.

Today Jesus calls us to show our love, from here on out in word and action, with family and with strangers. Jesus doesn’t promise that it is easy; Jesus does promise that it is NOT impossible and in those times when we have to get our hands dirty in loving one another, Jesus promises that we are not alone: AMEN!