The Commandment

John 13:34

It’s all about love.

But that makes it slippery, doesn’t it? We have trouble pinning down just exactly what it is that constitutes love. Cynics look at the world and find a treasure trove of reasons to negate and scoff at any feeble attempt to say we live by love--Marriage? The cynic scoffs, “It should read, ‘Til boredom do us part!’” Compassion? The cynic retorts, “Charity makes it easy to say you are compassionate without ever having to do anything more than write a check.” Sacrifice? The cynic huffs, “You go first!”

As we seek to follow Christ, we cannot defensively reject the sneers of the cynical. Christ never backed away from a cynic. In fact, the religious around him often named him a cynic! No, there be truth in the critique, whether we like it or not.

At issue for us is that we romanticize Jesus’ teaching on love. We sentimentalize it to a simple, black/white proclamation that we just try and get along, think pleasant thoughts, and smile at everybody--all else will fall into place.

But it doesn’t.

A “Peanuts” comic showed Linus, little theologian, walking in the rain smiling absurdly. For three panels, he marches on through a soaking downpour, smile cemented in place. Finally, he gets home, sopping wet, where he comments, “Actually, a smile makes a lousy umbrella!”

Jesus redirects us in his direct statement--”Love as I have loved you.”

Jesus loved us fully and completely--all of us. 

He loved with other-centered love. He met people where they were, as they were. He sought to identify what they needed. He thought of them before himself. He did not ask what they could add to him or offer him, only what he could do to meet them in compassion. For instance, when he met the paralyzed man (cf. Mk. 2), he offered him healing and also forgiveness. The last one confounded the audience. But Jesus, seeing the needs of the man fully and completely, understood that, yes, he needed physical healing, but he also needed his soul reclaimed from the pain and suffering brought on by his paralysis--years of living broken, beneath normal life, never really participating--i.e., separated from God and humanity. So, Jesus healed him inside and out because he saw the man on the man’s own terms. 

He loved self-sacrificially. He died for a crowd that strung him up, asking for their pardon from God. He took death into himself to free us all from death. He took our rebellion, refusal, and rejection of God into himself, dealing with it, emptying himself, to make us well and whole inside and out. 

And that is the love he tells us to practice--no more, no less.

That means we need to delve deeply into love as Christ defines it. It means when we meet someone along the way, we need to meet them mindfully, listening first, seeking ways to care for them in real and actual compassion. We meet them in openness, acceptance, and affirmation of who they are--children of God. It means we do all we can to ensure that we embody love for them, giving of ourselves, recalling another of Christ’s admonitions that if we have much, much we need to give (cf. Lk. 12:48). That means we need to practice charity that is far more than writing a check. We need to become involved in another’s life, meeting them face to face, walking with them, and caring for them with hands upon them.

Yes, it is going to get messy--human life is messy by nature. Yes, there will be a cost. Yes, it might hurt.

But ask folks married for decades who still sparkle when they look at each other--they did not get there by practicing convenience draped in romantic airs; they got there through love--other-centered, self-emptying love. 

And they are rich beyond all imagination, full beyond all reason, and touch joy daily.

Go, and do likewise.