Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.
“My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
Simon Peter asked him, “Lord, where are you going?”
Jesus replied, “Where I am going, you cannot follow now, but you will follow later.”
Peter asked, “Lord, why can’t I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you.”
Then Jesus answered, “Will you really lay down your life for me? Very truly I tell you, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!
(John 13:31–38, NIV)
Where does your attention go when you read this passage? If you’re like me, it goes to hoping for single-minded purpose, courage, and conviction—things Peter didn't have when Jesus’ prophecy was fulfilled and Peter denied Jesus three times. Those things would come later, after Peter truly understood who Jesus was.
I start praying for the heroic stuff—my attention fixes on that—and I tend to ignore the obedience stuff. I tend to focus on the stuff I'm unlikely to be challenged on (for instance, not denying Jesus in the face of death) and ignore the stuff that challenges me every day.
Jesus said:
"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another…”
Why does our attention snap past that to the next part? The part about dying with or for Jesus—and not the actual command?
Dying for Jesus is more dramatic. We all wonder if we would have what it takes to do this. But if we’re being honest, maybe we're relieved to be distracted from the more difficult command.
Dying requires the courage of an instant. Loving requires the courage of a lifetime.
Someone once said that people can be very heroic—if only the sacrifice lasts for a moment. But it's much harder to maintain the long courage of love.
Dying for Jesus requires one death. Love requires many deaths—to ourselves, to our selfish desires, to dreams of glory or vengeance. It is, by far, the more painful process.
And so, our attention snaps to the dying for Jesus bit, and we almost miss the bit about love.
Why did Jesus say these two things back-to-back? Maybe it was to give us an "out". If we don't want to love, we don't have to focus on the command. We can ignore it in favour of dying for Jesus.
He gives us a choice. (How like Jesus! He always seems to lean into giving us a choice, perhaps because a key attribute of love is choice.) He gives us a choice on whether to hear His command and obey it, or focus elsewhere.
"He who has ears, let him hear," Jesus said. [1] "Having eyes, do you not see? And having ears, do you not hear?" He exclaimed to his disciples another time. [2] It took them a while to understand, but eventually they got there. The apostle John would later write:
"For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome."
—1 John 5:3
"And this is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.”
—1 John 3:23
"If someone says, 'I love God,' and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen."
—1 John 4:20
Jesus does not give us the option to choose our obedience in this. Dying for Him doesn't cancel out our obligation to love one another.
"If I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
—Apostle Paul (1 Corinthians 13:3)
May we each have ears eager to hear, eyes to see, and hearts to absorb the full message and teachings of Jesus—and the courage to obey, wherever He leads.
Lord God, please let me not be distracted by heroic but unlikely scenarios from focussing on the certain necessity of following Your commands and loving my brothers and sisters. Please fill me with the ability only You have, to live in the fulness of Your love, and be a conduit of it to the people around me. Amen.
NOTES
Unless otherwise stated, all scripture quotations are taken from the NASB version.
[1] Matthew 11:15.
[2] Mark 8:18.
