Love, Day Three

"A new commandment I give to you,

that you love one another;

as I have loved you, that you also love one another.

By this all will know that you are My disciples,

if you have love for one another."

John 13:34-35, NKJV

As Jesus sat around the table of his final supper before the crucifixion, he looked at his motley crew, this varied collection of intellectuals and blue collar workers, of former government employees, zealous revolutionaries, and ambitious politicians. He understood that he was the hub that held the wheel of their relationship together. He was the center, the glue, their entire reason for being together. Already there were arguments about positions of power and influence, both now and in the kingdom to come. There were jealousies and rivalries and little intrigues. This cohesion was fragile and tentative, and he was about to leave. What would hold them together after he was gone?

What would bind the fisherman to the priest, the zealot to the taxman? What would bind the young to the old, the rich to the poor, the slave to the free? What would bind these prejudiced and sometimes bigoted men to the Gentiles who would be coming into their ranks? What would empower them to go where they did not want to go, to people they did not want to go to, and offer what they naturally wanted to keep to themselves? Jesus knew they need one thing, and one thing only. Jesus understood, all they needed was love.

It was a new commandment, and yet an old one. The commandment to love God and to love one's neighbor was as old as the Law itself, spoken by the same voice at the same time and written by the same hand that gave them their Ten Commandments. Jesus had spoken of it before, calling it the Great Commandment. Now he institutes it as the singular tenet of his kingdom and their future. Love one another.

Much has been made of the four loves, especially in Christian circles by those familiar with C.S. Lewis. In exploring the concepts of Biblical, Godly love, Lewis identifies the four relationship kinds of love--affection, friendship, romance and unconditional love. Storge. Phileo. Eros (& Venus). And, finally, Agape. It is this last one that he identifies as the kind of love which has its source in God. It is the kind of love Jesus instructed his disciples to have for each other. It's the kind of love Jesus commands us to have, one for another.

Jesus wasn't telling them to like each other. He wasn't telling them to be nice to each other. He wasn't telling them that they were family and had no choice in the matter. He wasn't telling them to be "in love" with each other. He was telling them to discover the kind of unconditional, everlasting, completely selfless love that he was about to demonstrate for them. For he said "Greater love has no one than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends." He was about to show the world the meaning of sacrificial love, and he wanted his disciples to understand it first and appropriate its power and meaning for themselves.

The kind of love he was talking about would define their existence, identifying them as his followers and setting them apart in a world that didn't--and still doesn't--understand the nature of true love.

It was a love of welcome and acceptance, without reservation.

It was a love of fellowship and entertaining others, of sharing your life liberally with others.

It was a love of fondness, demonstrated by affection and kindness, which is why the apostles later urged their readership to greet one another with a holy kiss.

It was a love of depth and dearness, of holding others close to your heart.

It was the kind of love Jesus had for the whole world, the kind of love Jesus had for us...when we were unloving, unlovely, and unlovable. And it's the kind of love Jesus wants us to have for each other now.