a Sermon for Easter 5C
Text: John 13:31-35

Love Each Other. Too Obvious?

Sometimes we have a selection from scripture that is too obvious. We understand where Jesus is going and what He’s getting at. Today is one of those days.

Jesus gives a new commandment, something he pretty much never does outside of this, and says “love one another.” Something so simple, direct, sensible.
“Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”
and
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

What’s our action? Love each other. Our calling card? Love each other. How does the world recognize us? We love each other.

This is so clear, so ready for us. What makes much less sense to us is how Jesus gets to that revelation. Let’s think of Jesus as a teacher in front of the classroom, standing at the blackboard. He is explaining a theorem in calculus and we are sitting there, eyes glazed like donuts. Then he arrives at the solution and we snap out of it. The pencils leap up and we all write out the solution. “Love.” There! We found it!

This makes a certain amount of sense on its own. Most of us have gone through the lectionary and heard these things before. We have lived lives of faith. We aren’t in basic math—or at least matriculated from that years ago. Perhaps we can just get some tips for better living. That might help. Preferably something easy. We’re simple people, after all. We like that “love” stuff.

Timing the Glorification

You can see that this story is from Chapter 13 in John, which takes place on that auspicious Thursday. Jesus washes the disciples’ feet. Judas leaves to betray them. Jesus gives them his only command: to love. They eat.

Throughout this gospel, Jesus makes reference to the hour of glorification (including 4:23, 7:30, 12:16, 12:23) not yet here, and now Jesus announces that this is that hour: “Now the Son of Man has been glorified”.

This is that moment. And for us to understand that command to love, we have do the work. That means dealing with this moment and glorification.

Protestants argue that Jesus’s glorification comes through the cross. Friday. In the death and the blood, Jesus becomes the vehicle by which we might all be saved. At the point of death, therefore, is the moment of victory.

Catholics argue that Jesus’s glorification comes through the resurrection. Sunday. In defeating death, Jesus destroys death. That, in rising from the dead, Jesus’s true glory is found, therefore we celebrate the arrival of victory.

Anglicans, I suppose split the difference. Saturday?

And yet Jesus announces that He has been glorified as of Thursday. How is that possible?

The Overlapping Events

I think it has to do with this moment. If I understand His work, Jesus is saying here:
1) The Son of Man has been glorified and
2) In him, GOD has been glorified.
3) If this is the case, then
4) GOD will glorify the Son of Man in himself immediately.

This moment is Jesus’s final teaching, His final moment of intimacy with His followers. A moment that begins with service, humbly cleaning his disciples’ feet in a ritual of purification. Then Jesus announces what Judas has planned and tells him to go do it. Then He commands them to love each other. Then he foretells Peter’s denial, speaks of GOD and the Holy Spirit and of many more things. He says they are not servants, but friends.

It seems that what has happened is that this last time of intimacy, of service and sharing and love is the moment of glorification. Because they are ready. It isn’t about Jesus anymore, but His followers.

This is why He tells them that they can’t follow where He is going, but that they will. I will no longer be with you, but when you get together, I will be there.

The Jesus Event will soon be done, but the event it inspires has already begun. How will we know this is the case? By followers loving each other.

Our Inheritance and Our Mission

This isn’t some spiritual guru do-gooder with a self-help message saying good things happen to people when they love. It is Jesus reminding us that we have taken over for Him. That we are doing GOD’s work here. And that we know we’re on the right track when we love each other. When we wash each others feet. When we pitch in when someone loses a job. When we are eager to help our children know what it means to be loved, rather than scolded or scorned.

Jesus tells us that this work requires that we act together. We can’t be Christians alone, but we can be the only Christian in a room.

We are the inheritors of that event. We aren’t telling people about a Palestinian Jew who died 2000 years ago, but a Lord who liberates us today—whose power flows through us when we gather in service and worship.

We are also the builders and the creators of a new event. An event for here and now. For this community and this people. We are not protecting precious artifacts, but making new, holy icons of our faith. Icons written by our love.

For when students become teachers, their teachers are glorified.