Easter 5/Year C/May 18, 2025
(Written by Chip Camden)
Readings: Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; Revelation 21:1-6; John 13:31-35
The Gospel of John presents some challenges for Biblical interpretation. It differs greatly from the other three gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke -- which are called "synoptic" because they "see together", often in contrast with the account in John. Many important events in the synoptic gospels (for example, the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper) are missing in John. Conversely, some of the most powerful moments in the Gospel of John (washing the disciples' feet and the raising of Lazarus, for example) occur only in John. John makes a much stronger case for Christ's divinity than anything that can be gleaned from the synoptic gospels.
John also gives us lengthy speeches from the mouth of Jesus. Because there were no quotation marks in ancient Greek, it can sometimes be difficult to tell where Jesus' speech ends and John's commentary begins, but perhaps that distinction wasn't of as much importance to the author as the content of the message. That content, however, can often seem inscrutable. Any logical thread quickly becomes tangled or leads to some unexpected terminus. The Jesus of John's gospel seems to use words much like Jackson Pollock used paints. His monologues appear especially crafted to challenge and confuse, and John often records that kind of response from Jesus' auditors: "How can these things be?" (John 3:9) "This is a hard saying, who can listen to it?" (John 6:60) "Now we know that you have a demon." (John 8:52)
Nevertheless, many of Jesus's sayings that are unique to John strike such a deep chord of truth that they have become definitive of Christian consciousness: "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son" (John 3:16), "I am the bread of life" (John 6:35), "I am the vine, you are the branches" (John 15:5), "It is finished" (John 19:30).
In today's gospel lesson, the scene is the Last Supper. Judas has just departed to carry out his betrayal of Jesus. Jesus says, “Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. If God has been glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and will glorify him at once. Little children, I am with you only a little longer. You will look for me; and as I said to the Jews so now I say to you, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ 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.”
If we read further, we find that Peter, at least, was again confused by what Jesus has said. He asks where Jesus is going, and why he can't follow him. Jesus replies, in effect, that Peter isn't ready for that -- yet. But Peter seems to have ignored the more difficult point in what Jesus said: that they should love each other as Jesus has loved them.
This phrase "as I have loved you" interests me. We might have expected present tense (“as I love you”) or at least continuing action, in the verb "love" (which is the Greek agapao αγαπαω). But John uses the aorist tense here, which usually indicates a past action at a specific point in time -- thus it is translated "have loved". This probably refers to Christ's incarnation, crucifixion and resurrection, which within the narrative hasn't been completed yet, but for the readers of the gospel would be the defining act of Christ's love. This is made clear in the Johannine epistles, which were written by the same author or group of authors. "By this God's love was revealed in us, that God has sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son as the atonement for our sins. Beloved, if God loved us in this way, we also ought to love one another." (I John 4:9-11)
Perhaps the greatest truth that Christianity offers the world is the realization that the limitless, all-powerful God has such a limitless love that this God enters deeply into our experience, suffers everything that we suffer, and ultimately redeems it all.
What does it mean, then, for us to love each other in the same way?
Sacrificial love means that nothing is more important than caring for each other. It means setting aside selfish goals when they get in the way of helping others. And even that must not be done in order to "check a box" or accrue brownie points -- it must proceed from genuinely loving our neighbors as ourselves. It means seeing others’ wrongdoing not as an offence that needs to be punished, but rather as a sickness that needs healing. It means that we do not measure another's worth by the number of dollars they can put under their name, or the family they come from, or the talents they display, or even the good work they've done, but rather by the fact that they are fellow children of God, no matter how messed up their lives have become. It means having the humility to see that we are no better than anyone else, and that God loves us as we are. It means believing and desiring that all can be redeemed.
This kind of love is in direct conflict with the individualist materialism that we are taught from a young age in this world, so we need grace to unlearn those lessons and to grow in love. As Jesus says in another passage from John's gospel, "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)