John 13:31-35

    31 When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. 32 If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
    33 “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
    34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

“Love One Another”

To him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood… to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen. (Revelation 1:5-6)

    Everything Jesus says is powerful. Everything Jesus says is important. Everything Jesus says, he says to us to strengthen our faith in him. With these midweek services, obviously we’re going to focus on what Jesus says to us. But our series takes everything Jesus says to us and pulls out certain phrases. Little pockets of meaning. Each service, we will look at three specific words of Jesus. Three-word phrases he spoke during his passion. Three-word phrases that are powerful. And important. And spoken to strengthen our faith.
    Tonight is the first set of three. In our lesson for this evening, in John 13:34, Jesus says, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Tonight we focus on Jesus’ new command, the three words: “Love one another.”

    Does that strike you as strange at all? He calls this a “new” command. The “new command” is “love.” What’s so new about that?
    The word “new” suggests a comparison. You hear “new” and you instantly think, ok “not old.” So what would the old command be? Well, the law. God’s law. The do’s and don’ts. The Commandments. Yet Jesus himself summarized the commandments into these two: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” (Mark 12:30) And “Love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mark 12:31)
    Love is the summary of the Old Command. Love God. Love your neighbor. “Do this and you will live.” (Luke 10:28) Jesus told the expert in the law. If “love” is the summary of the law, the summary of the Old Command, how is it new?
    How did we do with the Old Command? How was it going with the “Do this and you will live” kind of love?
    Regarding the Old Command, we are law-breakers. Where we should “do”, we “don’t.” Where we should “don’t,” we “do.” Regarding the Old Command we are incapable of love. “Love the Lord your God” with all that you have? We can’t do it. Paul says in Romans, “the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” (Romans 8:7) Regarding the Old Command we are sinners who are not only incapable of loving God, by nature we hate God.
    And if that’s true, if we are incapable of loving God who daily does so much for us, we don’t stand a chance at “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If we hate God how could we possibly love other sinners. No, regarding the Old Command we don’t, we can’t love. By nature we hate. We hate God. We hate each other. In our hatred we don’t just sin. We are sinners. We are like dead bodies. No life. No love. Dead.
    So what is Jesus doing? Is he taking this one last moment to remind us of that? Is that why he gives us the “new” command? To remind us how we’ve failed? To remind us that we are dead?

    The car I drive now, I bought last year. The model year is 2010. The car was 8 years old when I bought it. But I bet you can guess what I still call that car. “My new car.” As long as I’ve known it the car has never been new. But it was new to me. The car wasn’t new. But our relationship was.
    “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
    The command to love is not new. But it’s new to us. The command to love is not new. But our relationship to that command is new. Because we are new. Jesus’ love makes us new. Throughout the pages of his Word, God explains how:
    Regarding the Old Command we were dead. Ephesians 2:1 says, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins.”
    We were dead in our sins when God sent his son into the world. Romans 5:8 says, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
    We were dead in our sins when God’s Son was nailed to a cross. Isaiah 53:5 says, “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
    We are not dead anymore. In Jesus, God made us new. He made us alive. Ephesians 2:4-5 say “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.”
    Because of God’s grace, because of the love of Jesus, we will live forever with him in heaven. Colossians 3:4 says, “When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.”
    And because of all that, because of Jesus’ love for us, because he paid for our sins, because he made us new, the command is new. Not “love and you will live.” But “because you live, love.”
    Alive and new in Christ, we are newly capable of love. Alive and new in Christ, we are set free from slavery to sin. Alive and new in Christ, we are free to love. We see the love that he has shown us and we look for ways to show that love to one another and ultimately to God. It starts with Jesus. It starts with his love. As 1 John 4:19 says, “We love because he first loved us.” “Because you live, love.”

    Everything Jesus says is powerful. Everything Jesus says is important. Everything Jesus says, he says to us to strengthen our faith in him. So even as he gives us a command… Even as he commands us to love one another, he is always pointing to his love for us.
    Jesus speaks to us:

“Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
    “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
    “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

    “It’s time,” Jesus said. “It’s time for me to die. It’s time for me to leave you. But before I do, you need to know… you need to know, that I love you. That’s why I’m dying. That’s why I’m leaving. That’s why I’ll be back. Because I love you. And when you know that, you will love one another.” Amen

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:7)