John 13:31-35 Fifth Sunday of Easter Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke Sunday, May 18, 2025 “Carry Our Christ’s New Command”
Have you noticed that we’ve gone back in time? I don’t just mean that every week the words of Scripture take us back to a time and a place different in some ways from our place in the world today. What I mean is on Easter Sunday, we heard how Jesus appeared to people after he had risen from the dead. The next week, we heard about things that happened later that day and then a week later. For a third week in a row, we heard about Jesus, alive after dying on the cross, appearing to people and showing them that he had risen. And all those accounts clearly fit our worship series theme, “Because He Lives.” Because this fact has so much importance, it is worth focusing on Jesus appearing alive to his disciples.
But starting one week ago, things shifted. Instead of events that took place after Jesus died and rose again, our Gospel accounts have shown us Jesus teaching his disciples before he went to the cross. Last week we heard Jesus call himself the Good Shepherd. This week we hear Jesus giving a new command to his disciples, the command to love one another. And he said this at a very particular time. He said it not after he died and rose, but just hours before he was betrayed, tried, convicted, and then executed.
That’s where our lesson starts. Right after Judas left. Maybe that’s not enough context on its own, but this is what happened in the upper room on the Thursday of Holy Week where Jesus was eating the Passover meal with his disciples. Jesus had just explained that one of his disciples would betray him, and Judas went off to do exactly that. The other disciples didn’t connect the departure of Judas with what Jesus said. They thought he had other business to do. But Jesus knew. He knew that Judas leaving was setting off the whole string of events that would lead to his death on the cross.
And this is what he says glorifies him and glorifies his Father. That’s not how we usually think about glory. Someone is glorified in our mind when they become famous, when they are celebrated, when they are praised. Jesus connects glorification to his betrayal, suffering, death, and burial. This glorifies Jesus because he is doing what he came to do, and it glorifies his Father who is perfectly united with him in this goal and attitude and direction.
What he was about to do beginning with that very moment and the very movement of Judas toward his wicked work—that was what set the stage for Jesus giving his new command. His disciples could not follow him to his death for the sins of the world. They could not offer what he was giving. They would see him for just a little bit longer. He would go away from them and be hidden from them, and they would be left behind. But Jesus would continue to work through them.
It seems like two different things Jesus teaches in our verses, doesn’t it? He first talks about what he is going to do, and then he talks about what his disciples should do. Yet these two ideas are so beautifully and intimately connected. What Jesus is doing enables his disciples to follow his command. What Jesus is doing sets the example for them. What Jesus is doing is loving his disciples and the world. And Jesus would continue to love his disciples and love the world through them, so he tells them to love.
That’s the command. “A new commandment I give you: Love one another.” If Jesus stopped there, we might wonder what’s so new about this commandment. Had he never told his disciples that they were to love others? Of course he had! But on that Holy Thursday night that command had a new perspective. It had a new motivation. It had a new power and a new example. “Just as I have loved you, so also you are to love one another.”
No, you cannot go to the cross to save a world from sin. No, you cannot perfectly fulfill the Father’s will and perfectly respect his Word and perfectly love and honor him. No, you do not have an innocent
life to sacrifice or holy blood to pour out. But you are called to have the same loving, self-sacrificing, service-oriented love that Jesus puts on full display. It wasn’t easy for him. The Garden of Gethsemane finds him sweating out great drops of blood in earnest prayer that the cup of God’s wrath would pass by him so he would not have to drink it down. But God would be glorified in his Son. The Son prayed to his heavenly Father, “Your will be done.” And god’s will was done. And so Judas returned to Jesus, this time with an entourage of armed men. And they arrested Jesus and carried him away. And within one full day, he had been tried and found guilty, sentenced to death, executed, and buried.
And he did it all for people just like Judas, people who hide their intentions and betray and harm. He did it for people like his disciples who denied him and ran away from the danger. He did it for people like you and like me who know all too well that the love Jesus shows is a standard we cannot attain. He asks us to love those who betray us. He asks us to love those who abandon us. He asks us to love those who belittle and mock and curse. He asks us to love people even and especially when we know all the bad things they have done to us and all the little things they do that annoy us and all the reasons we could rationalize not loving them.
This is not primarily about feelings or emotions. Jesus did not look at those nailing him to the cross and think, “What wonderful people these are!” He loved them. He prayed, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they are doing.” When he looks at us, he does not find in us a reason to love. But he loves anyway. He is patient and kind and serving and forgiving. To us. To the world.
And how do we respond? Jesus tells us, just as he did his disciples that Thursday evening, that we are to love others. But we need to confess how often we fall short of his expectations of us. We need to admit that the challenges are often too great for us to truly love others and especially to do so as Jesus has loved us. Don’t our excuses and explanations come down to something like: I can’t pour myself out for people who don’t build me up and don’t respond in the way I want them to. How can I just keep expending time and energy and effort only to have people take advantage of me? Maybe I sometimes feel like I will end up like the late Good Friday Jesus, dead and buried after pouring myself out, seemingly without any results.
As our worship series suggests, we’re not looking at this commandment from the perspective of Good Friday evening. Yes, Jesus said all this before he was betrayed and arrested and killed, but we know the whole story. We know the Easter perspective. Because Jesus lives, everything he says is true. Everything he commands is worthwhile. Sure, there may be times where our love seems to be wasted or abused. But it is still to the glory of Jesus and the glory of his Father and or Father. And one day, we will rise to live with our Savior. We will share his glory. It won’t be because of our love. It will be because of his love for us, because of what he did for us. And because he lives.
We’ve come to call the day when Jesus said these things Holy Thursday. It is the day he gave us and all his followers the gift of Holy Communion. It is a day that he made holy by his love and life and work. We’ve gone away from calling it Maundy Thursday, a name that many mispronounce, a name that many misunderstand, a name that brings up more questions than answers. The best explanation of that term seems to be the mandate, the command that Jesus gives. This is “Commandment Thursday.” That would be downright terrifying if the commandment were our way of accomplishing something, our way of getting to heaven. Thankfully, it is not that. It is our response. It is our thankfulness. It is our imitation in joy of what Jesus has done for us. We can live lives of lavish love. We can carry out Christ’s new command. We can love one another because Jesus lives for us.
The Text: John 13:31–35 (EHV)
31After Judas left, Jesus said, “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. 32If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify the Son in himself and will glorify him at once.”
33“Dear children, I am going to 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.
34“A new commandment I give you: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, so also you are to love one another. 35By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”