John 13:31-35 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
Fifth Sunday of Easter Sunday, May 18, 2025 “Carry Our Christ’s New Command”
Have you noticed that we’ve gone back in time? I don’t just mean that every week the words of Scripture take us back to a time and a place different in some ways from our place in the world today. What I mean is on Easter Sunday, we heard how Jesus appeared to people after he had risen from the dead. The next week, we heard about things that happened later that day and then a week later. For a third week in a row, we heard about Jesus, alive after dying on the cross, appearing to people and showing them that he had risen. And all those accounts clearly fit our worship series theme, “Because He Lives.” Because this fact has so much importance, it is worth focusing on Jesus appearing alive to his disciples. But starting one week ago, things shifted. Instead of events that took place after Jesus died and rose again, our Gospel accounts have shown us Jesus teaching his disciples before he went to the cross. Last week we heard Jesus call himself the Good Shepherd. This week we hear Jesus giving a new command to his disciples, the command to love one another. And he said this at a very particular time. He said it not after he died and rose, but just hours before he was betrayed, tried, convicted, and then executed. That’s where our lesson starts. Right after Judas left. Maybe that’s not enough context on its own, but this is what happened in the upper room on the Thursday of Holy Week where Jesus was eating the Passover meal with his disciples. Jesus had just explained that one of his disciples would betray him, and Judas went off to do exactly that. The other disciples didn’t connect the departure of Judas with what Jesus said. They thought he had other business to do. But Jesus knew. He knew that Judas leaving was setting off the whole string of events that would lead to his death on the cross. And this is what he says glorifies him and glorifies his Father. That’s not how we usually think about glory. Someone is glorified in our mind when they become famous, when they are celebrated, when they are praised. Jesus connects glorification to his betrayal, suffering, death, and burial. This glorifies Jesus because he is doing what he came to do, and it glorifies his Father who is perfectly united with him in this goal and attitude and direction. What he was about to do beginning with that very moment and the very movement of Judas toward his wicked work—that was what set the stage for Jesus giving his new command. His disciples could not follow him to his death for the sins of the world. They could not offer what he was giving. They would see him for just a little bit longer. He would go away from them and be hidden from them, and they would be left behind. But Jesus would continue to work through them. It seems like two different things Jesus teaches in our verses, doesn’t it? He first talks about what he is going to do, and then he talks about what his disciples should do. Yet these two ideas are so beautifully and intimately connected. What Jesus is doing enables his disciples to follow his command. What Jesus is doing sets the example for them. What Jesus is doing is loving his disciples and the world. And Jesus would continue to love his disciples and love the world through them, so he tells them to love. That’s the command. “A new commandment I give you: Love one another.” If Jesus stopped there, we might wonder what’s so new about this commandment. Had he never told his disciples that they were to love others? Of course he had! But on that Holy Thursday night that command had a new perspective. It had a new motivation. It had a new power and a new example. “Just as I have loved you, so also you are to love one another.” No, you cannot go to the cross to save a world from sin. No, you cannot perfectly fulfill the Father’s will and perfectly respect his Word and perfectly love and honor him. No, you do not have an innocent