Hello, and welcome to the STC podcast. My name is Casey Strine, I’m a member of the STC staff, and I’m excited to be sharing a few of my reflections on the Gospel of John with you this week.

This week we will be looking at materials from chapters 12, 13, and 14 of the Gospel according to John.

This section of the Gospel of John include Jesus’ final public conversation and some of the last conversations he has with his closest disciples. These passages are filled with the ideas Jesus wants to ensure his closest followers understand before his death because they are the concepts on which God will build a movement of people following Jesus and seeking to complete his mission.

REFLECTION:

With the beginning of chapter 13, the Gospel of John has taken us literally inside Jesus’ inner circle of disciples. Yesterday, we saw Jesus’ first act with this group: he washes their feet, showing them that no one is too important to serve those around them. Today, we see Jesus expand on what this call to serve others means.

I should comment on the first part of our text, in which Jesus identifies Judas Iscariot as the one who will betray him and sends him off to do so. This is a difficult passage to understand, and an even harder one to try to explain to others! All we can say with certainty is that Jesus knew that Judas Iscariot was ready and willing to give away his location to those who wanted to arrest him and that Jesus was not the least bit afraid of him doing so. In the larger story, Judas’ dismissal is a short intermission within a larger narrative of what Jesus wants to say to his closest followers before he goes. And so, to that, we shall turn.

With Judas gone, Jesus reminds his disciples that he will only be with them a short time – something they seem to need to be told repeatedly. This time he also stresses that they cannot come where he is going. Their separation will be complete – no peering round the corner for just a peek of Jesus and some advice. All this builds up to Jesus saying he is leaving a new command for these disciples: ‘as I have loved you, so you must love one another.’

Before thinking about the content of the command, let’s reflect on why Jesus makes it a command. Recall that this conversation unfolds at Passover. In Judaism, Passover is the beginning of a two-part celebration that remembers the exodus from Egypt (Passover) and the giving of the Ten Commandments and the rest of God’s instructions to Israel (what we know as Pentecost). This is a time of year when a Jewish person would be thinking carefully about God’s commands and what they require. Jesus’ choice to refer to this as a new command, therefore, is not accidental.

This new command also makes clear reference to commands that would have been very familiar to its audience. These disciples, all from Jewish families, would have known well the command to love the stranger as yourself, which appears over 30 times in their Scriptures. They would have also known the command Jesus calls the greatest commandment: to love your neighbour as yourself, which is found in Leviticus 19:18. Jesus alludes to both of those here, but changes the requirement in a small, but important, way. No longer are people called to love others as they love themselves, but rather in the self-sacrificial way that Jesus has loved them. Knowing that Jesus is very soon to be beaten and crucified on their behalf, this is a call to self-sacrificial love that goes to the limits of what any of us can imagine. Indeed, when Peter does imagine doing so, Jesus explains that in denying him later that same night he will prove just how difficult it is to fulfil.

What does all of this mean for us? On one hand, there is no doubt that we are called to love others in a self-sacrificial way. That comes through loud and clear. If it is the case that doing causes us to give up something substantial, we should not be surprised.