Fifth Sunday of Easter

READINGS: Acts: 14.21b-27, Revelation: 21.1-5a, John 13.1, 31-33a, 34-35

'Love one another', 'Love your neighbour as yourself, - ancient commandments. However, when these words are genuinely heard and subsequently obeyed, there is utter newness. New revolutionary things begin to happen. Consider how new and even startling it was when centuries after Leviticus, a man appeared in Palestine who loved his neighbour as himself. When the commandment was actually lived out, something so new happened that it threatened all those who had invested in the status quo. The religious establishment in Jerusalem couldn't handle Jesus' radical; fulfilment of the ancient commandment they had known all their lives. The commandment to love was old, as long as it stayed in print. When it was embodied, it was altogether new, with awesome implications. In Jesus a higher kind of love was revealed, as Divine love transforms all forms of loving. Jesus' love was like God's love, gracious and self-giving to the point of costly sacrifice. 'No one has greater love than this, Jesus said 'than to lay down one's life for one's friends', then he demonstrated that love on the cross.

Jesus also said that faithfulness to his new commandment was how the disciples would be recognized in the world, 'by this everyone will know, that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another'. We are not to be known by our spirituality or our piety, or by our superior knowledge, college degrees-but by the way we love. Even the pagans in the early days of Christianity, remarked among one another 'See these Christians how they love each another'.