A New Commandment - The Radical Call to Love: Reflection on the 5th Sunday of Easter

Christos Anesti … Alithos Anesti

Before his passion, our Lord gives a ‘New Commandment.’ This is a commandment of love, which would characterize the new community he is establishing, which is the church. Jesus says, love one another (not as yourself, which is already admonished in the Old Testament, but as he, Jesus, loves you). This begs the question, how has Jesus loved us? And the response would be: “Look at the Cross.” His dying and rising are proof of his love. The cross demonstrates the extent to which he would go for love of us.

But what is “new” about the commandment Jesus gives? Love had been preached even before the coming of Jesus. What then was he proposing that was new? In a culture where love was extended primarily to insiders, members of one’s family or community, and to friends, the newness of Jesus’ command consists in its scope. Jesus charges his disciples to model their love after his own example. His love embraces all, the deserving and undeserving alike. Jesus died for the whole of humanity, and his love is for all of God’s creation. Jesus makes love the marker for identifying his disciples. He says, “by this will all people know you are my disciples, if you love one another (John 13:35). As disciples of Christ, we too are called to set no boundaries to our love. We witness to our Christianity by the love we have for one another. And this love must never be understood only as an emotion, as emotions are fickle and temporary. Our love must be marked by a commitment to the good.

The law commanded people to love their brothers and sisters as they loved themselves (Leviticus 19:18). But Jesus’ new commandment called people to love as he did. Jesus loved humanity more than himself. He emptied himself of his divinity to assume human nature and to go to his death for their sakes. Hence he tells his disciples, ‘greater love than this no one has than for a person to lay down their life for their friends” (John 13:15). Jesus wants us to go beyond the conventional “I love you” which means different things to different people, and is easily said than meant. I think if people paid for the number of times they said those words, perhaps many would say them sparingly. Talk is cheap, but the Lord demonstrates his love beyond words; he dies to prove it. In this is God’s love manifested, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

When we love one another just as Jesus loves us, willing the good of one another, the world would be a more peaceful and loving one. There would be no need for wars and the senseless violence that characterize political discourse today. We would not seek to annihilate people who disagree with us, or who hold different opinions than we do as though they were our enemies. We would be charitable in how we approach anyone, seeing that we have the obligation to love as Christ did. The result of having the Christ kind of love for everyone would be a “new heaven and a new earth.” This kind of love would bring about a renewal of the face of the earth. It would be heaven on earth, a place where God dwells among us. This is the whole essence of Christian discipleship.

May Jesus bless you, and may Our Lady protect you!