5^th SUNDAY OF EASTER

 

Readings: Acts 14:21-27

                 Revelation 21:1-5

                 John 13:31-33, 34-35

 

 

“I give you a new commandment: love one another.

As I have loved you, you also must love one another.”

 

 

            At the Good Shepherd Sunday, which we celebrated just last Sunday, we know that the highest virtue that binds the sheep and the shepherd is love. Certainly, the intimacy of the two becomes possible only when there is love. Today, this thematic continuity leads us further into the understanding of love. Christ, he Good Shepherd, now entrusts to his disciples the new commandment of loving one another.

 

            Love is as old as humanity or perhaps even older. But in today’s gospel, Christ insists the novelty of his commandment of love. Why? What makes his commandment new? Let us try to meditate on these salient points.

 

            1.         Jesus’ commandment of love is new because of its basis: Christ’s own love. “Just as I have loved you, you also must love one another.” Judaism has the shema that outstands all other commandments of the Law and the prophets. This shema is no other than the commandment of love: “Hear, O Israel, you must love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul and with all our strength. And you must love your neighbor as yourself” (Deut 6:5; Lev 19:18; Mt 22:37-40). Actually, these are two commandments, but they have to be put together since their separation simply theoretical. No man can ever love God whom he does not see if he cannot even love his fellow man, whom he does see (cf 1John 4:7ff). By putting them together, loving God beget flesh and bone. Because of this, even Jesus himself acknowledges its sublimity. But the weakness of this commandment lies on the basis of the supposedly second commandment: loving one’s neighbor as loving oneself.

 

            Human love varies in different degrees and in different people who are supposed to eel or have it. That is why psychology and other sciences distinguish different kinds and levels of love, starting perhaps from the carnal level up to the rational level. And science has come up to such understanding precisely because of human experience. There are people who fall in love regardless of what others would say. Others love only on condition. Some do not dare to love others at all. And worse, there are people who do not even love themselves. These are those unfortunate individuals who after looking at their faces before the mirror would end up with deep regrets why providence has let them be born in this world. Now, if we take loving oneself as the basis of loving others, evidently, the basis becomes so loose. One loves others just the way he loves himself or just as much or less as he loves himself. In this case, loves becomes so relative. No one can point to something absolute about love. One can even doubt if there is really love at all.

           

            It is for this reason that Jesus comes to tell us his disciples about his new commandment. This new commandment of loving others does not anymore and in any way depend on one’s love of himself, but on the love of Christ. In this case, we see and cling on to some objective features of this love. Among these features is that kind of love, which unites Christ with the father. We now that Christ’s love is no other than the father’s love. Now, this Father’s love is so unfathomable as a mystery. In fact, we happen to know it only because it has been revealed to us. And from revelation, we know that it was this great love that made us and it was this same love that saved us. Indeed, “God so loved the world that he has sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:1). Another feature of Christ’s love is that it is an obedient love. This perfect obedience out of love reaches its peak at his total kenosis, i.e. his death on the cross. This was his ultimate way of showing his love for his friends. So fortunate must his friends be to have God’s only Son as their ransom. And it is precisely in this sense that we get into the second point of our reflection.

 

            2.         This commandment of love is new because it is the trademark of Christianity. We become known as Christ’s followers – meaning, Christian in fact – by obeying this commandment of love. “By this everyone will know that your are my disciples.” Why? Because it obliges his followers to love in return. Here, love is not optional, but mandatory. No Christian is excused nor exempted from loving. Either he does not love and is not a Christian, or he does love and becomes worthy of the name. And there is no other reason of this mandatory love than the love of God. Thus, regardless of how much or how less we love ourselves, and regardless if we may not even love ourselves, the commandment remains binding. It is in this sense that we understand St. John when he teaches us the reason why we must love God – and our neighbors for that matter – lies precisely in the fact that God loved us first (cf 1John 4:19).

 

            This commandment of love further acquires its sense of novelty by Christ’s resurrection. As he rose from the dead to conquer death itself and bring forth a newness of life, the risen Christ is mysteriously in each and every person. This he surely fulfills even as he said it long before his passion. Christ does not deceive nor tell lies. Every act of charity is an act done for and in behalf of Christ. So, every time we give a cup of cold water to his disciples will never be without reward (cf Mk 9:41). The moment we share even the least of our time, talent and treasure to the less fortunate, we are in fact doing it for Christ. (cf Mt 25:40). Everyone in need is a neighbor. And Christ is simply hidden before any needy face. So, he does even the slightest act charity is always remembered in God’s eternity.

 

            True, love has been preached by other great religions and schools of wisdom. And equally true, too, is the fact that it has been preached not only at one stage of history but all times and places. For this reason, we cannot even take love as the final gauge of civility, for even people outside of civilization know how to love and always try to live and teach this most beautiful things in the world. But love in its fullest degree of charity remains a wishful thinking without Christ. In its totality, therefore, we realize that it is the person of Christ that raises the commandment of love to such novelty. From its very foundation that knows no weakness to its finality that goes beyond the limits of time and space, we have Christ who himself is love. This makes the commandment forever new!