We Are Commanded to Love

“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.” –John 13:34-35 (ESV).

These words were spoken by Jesus on the night of His farewell discourse to His disciples.  They were gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem.  He had washed his disciples’ feet as an act of kindness and to teach them an important lesson about humility and service.  “Truly, truly I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.  If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them” (John 13:16-17).  He then gave a prophetic message about those who would go out in Jesus’ name to take His message:  “Truly, truly I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me”  (John 13:20). But then in the sequence of events of that night, Jesus was “troubled in spirit” and predicted that one of them in the room would betray him.  He said it would be the one to whom he handed the morsel of bread, for they were eating the Passover Meal together.  After giving bread to Judas Iscariot, we are told “Satan entered into him” (13:27) and “he immediately went out.  And it was night.”  How ominous are the words “it was night.”  The powers of darkness were at work to betray Jesus.  He would refer to night again later when He was arrested: “But this is your hour, and the power of darkness” (Luke 22:53).  After Judas left the upper room, Jesus gave what he called ‘a new commandment,’ and that was that they love each other as He loved them.  What a commandment!  Do we love each other enough to lay down our lives for another?  This is what Jesus did for us.  He lay down His life; we are to live ours obediently.

I am reminded of the example the French novelist Victor Hugo gives in his novel, Les Miserables.  He tells the story of Jean Valjean who stole a loaf of bread because that seemed the only way he could help his sister feed her starving childen.  Jean was arrested and served for nineteen years in prison for this minor crime.  At the end of his prison term he was turned out on the streets, much older, penniless and unable to find work because of his prison record.  In deapair he finally made his way to the home of a good old bishop who took him in, fed him a nourishing meal and gave him a clean bed on which to sleep.  Valjean recalled that the bishop had served him on silver platters and the candles had been mounted on beautiful silver candlesticks.  The ex-prisoner got up and stole the platters, thinking he could sell them and make some money to live on for awhile.  But he was soon apprehended by the police with the stolen goods in his possession and they brought the thief with his loot back to the bishop’s house.  The bishop, whose heart was overflowing with love, told the police, “I gave them to him.”  And turning to Valjean, he said, “And Jean, you forgot to take the candlesticks.”  Valjean was shocked by the bishop’s kind treatment of him, which prevented his being incarcerated again.  He accepted the candlesticks, but later on reflection, Valjean knew it was out of love for him that the bishop had acted with such compassion.  The bishop’s act of love brought about Jean Valjean’s true repentance and a redemption of his life.  He had observed love in word and in deed, and it made a difference in his life. “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Who needs the love of Jesus today?  And how can we be the instrument of delivering that love?