In his farewell discourse in John’s gospel (13:34-35), Jesus gives his followers a “new commandment;” They are to love each other as Jesus has loved them. People who encounter the followers’ love for each other will find their way to the love of Christ (1 John 4:7-21).
The Greek word used in this discourse in John and indeed throughout the Johannine writings is agape. John defines agape as the sacrificial love of God, who gives God’s son so we may have life. We see Christ’s sacrificial love when he offers his life to end the power of sin and death over our lives and human systems.
In this context, love is not primarily a feeling but our disciplined response to God’s sacrificial love. John believes that this love becomes a way of life formed in us as we abide in Christ. Jesus depicts this reality by identifying himself as the grapevine and we as the branches that abide in him and so bear fruit. To be in love with God in Christ requires a fruitful response from us that draws others not to ourselves, but to the Christ who has all creation’s best interests at heart.
In the Epistle we read this past week, John 4:7-21, John uses agape or a derivative of it twenty-nine times. He drives home how essential it is that the church be the sacrificial love of God to the world around us. This type of loving is different from other types of love; eros, brother/sisterly love, or love in tennis (which means nothing at all). This love requires us to adopt a spiritual discipline in which we choose to answer hurt and harm with forgiveness, and rejection with continued acts of love. This love requires us to have Christ’s longer view that does not engage in acts of revenge, or draw others into our rage against another, or separate us from those we fear or those who are different than us. These responses do not reflect the love of Christ, but quite the opposite. Of necessity it means we will learn to see people we encounter with Jesus’ eyes, knowing that people do violent acts against others when they are in the most pain themselves; when they are fearful, feel abandoned, or when they have experienced brutality.
People often lash out at those who are most familiar to them because they sense that is the safest place to react. Gaining an understanding of ourselves through faith formation, spiritual direction, or therapy, can give us wisdom; wisdom to understand when an attack comes out of someone’s deep pain and is a cry for help rather than an attack on us. This can only come through living faithfully and deepening intimacy with Christ for a long time. When we know the stories of the ones with whom we are in community, this also enables us to stand with them in the moments of pain and mediate the grace and kindness of God.
Although we often interpret these passages as if they apply to us personally, the context indicates that this refers to the whole faith community. We, the church, are to be a beacon of the steadfast, sacrificial love of Christ so others may see Christ in us and come to him through our words of grace and kindness to each other.
The Apostle Paul invited us to this life of disciplined love by giving us a description of what it looks like. In I Corinthians 13:4-7, Paul wrote, “Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.”
This way of love demands of us a lifelong discipline found in our abiding with Christ, which takes the long view of the work of redemption in the hearts of God’s children. Holding Paul’s thoughts before us can give us a roadmap of the way to love.
Grace and Peace,
The Rev. Dr. Peter Stube
Priest Associate
Published: May 2, 2024