Rev. Betsy Aldrich Garland
April 9, 2009
John 13:31-35

Maundy Thursday:  “As I Have Loved You”

I have a really good relationship with my brother Bill – but when we were kids we argued a lot, like most brothers and sisters.  So, a few years ago, I found the perfect birthday card for him.  On the cover it said, “To my brother whom I love very much,” and when you opened it up, it read, “Mom made me say it!”  Bill loved that card so much that he kept it on his bulletin board at work for months.  Lots of us have had that kind of sibling relationship.  We would argue and our mother would make us apologize, to say we were sorry.  Perhaps you find yourself as a parent insisting your children do the same after a squabble.

This being Maundy Thursday, I remembered that card.  “Maundy” comes from the word “commandment” or “mandate.”  According to the Gospel of John, Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment, “...that you love one another.  Just as I have loved you,...”

Now, in the western world, we are not used to thinking of love as a commandment.  Read any novel, and you will hear love talked about as a feeling, not an order.  Turn on your TV, and you will hear love discussed as romance, not as a purposeful relationship. 

True, previously in his ministry, we had heard Jesus talk about two commandments – first “to love the Lord your God with all your heart and mind and soul and strength” and, second, “your neighbor as yourself.”  But we heard the “heart” word and assumed feelings.  Here, at Jesus’ last supper with the disciples, Jesus doesn’t talk about love as a feeling – although undoubtedly there were feelings involved – but about example.  His example.  The disciples are to love each other as Jesus has loved them.  So how does Jesus love? 

Jesus loves by caring for others.  Jesus healed the sick, fed the hungry, acknowledged the poor, elevated women and children, raised the dead.  If we are to be disciples, we are to care as Jesus cared – with concrete actions designed to save others.

Jesus loves by telling the truth.  He tells the rich young ruler who hungers for new life to sell everything and come and follow him.  He tells Peter that he will deny him.  He tells Judas to go and do what he has to do.  If we are to be disciples, we are to tell the truth as Jesus did – by confronting the powers that be and acknowledging what is false in our own lives.

Jesus loves by being a faithful witness to his mission – even onto death, even when we hear his longing prayer, “If it be thy will, take this cup from me.” 

When Jesus gathers with his disciples, he knows that he has only hours left.  He must wonder, “Are they ready?”  “Will they survive my death?”  “Has all this been in vain?”  “Will my ministry continue in them?”  So Jesus gives them a new commandment, “...love one another.  Just as I have loved you,...”  He knows that, unless they are able to discover the power of love in action, they will go back to fishing – and reminiscing about the three years on the road with Jesus.  Jesus’ ministry will be finished, and his death will have been for naught. 

The miracle is that, despite Jesus’ arrest, crucifixion, and death, the disciples caught the vision of God’s divine plan of redemption:  a community grounded in love and service, even in spite of the reality of betrayal within the community.

It remains for us to carry on that vision in our mixed up and broken world – hungering for love in action.

May it be so.

Amen.