Click here to read the daily readings from the USCCB website.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
This line always catches my attention. It is challenging… I mean it is really easy to say, “God, I love you” but much harder to observe His commandments at all times.
It reminds me of children, of my nieces and nephews quite often, who will be very sweet to their parents, hugging them and telling them they love them, but then, only moments later, they won’t obey them to pick up their toys or go to bed… it’s like, what just happened to the love you just professed?
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Sometimes I refer to this verse when talking to people about not going to Mass.
They’ll say they love God, yet, they’ll put a myriad things before Him on Sunday morning: golf, fishing, kids activities… but I’ll remind them that it is a commandment to honor the Sabbath and keep it Holy, and the way we do that is by going to Mass on Sunday.
Currently, nobody is going to Mass on Sunday, but it doesn’t change the need for us to keep it Holy, and clearly you are attempting to do that by reading this homily (listening to the Mass on the radio).
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
Sometimes I refer to this verse when talking about following the regulations and guidelines set forth by the Church. Especially for newer technological issues, people will say that the bible is silent on that so I don’t have to do what the Church says.
For example, one issue right now is people want to use human embryos to try to make vaccines or cures for this Coronavirus. If Jesus had talked about destroying human embryos to make a vaccine two thousand years ago, they would have had no idea what he was talking about, right?
But Jesus gave his authority to the Church to help guide us and lead us through these difficult technological things, and the Church says to us, it is not okay to destroy a human life, even under the circumstances of trying to save a life.
So I point out to people, if we love Jesus, we should observe what the Church commands also.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”
But in addition to those ways I have already mentioned is a much deeper way that requires reading this scripture in context.
This Gospel passage comes from John chapter 14 which is part of Jesus’ farewell discourse on the night of the last supper. At the beginning of this night and this discourse, in chapter 13, Jesus washes their feet as a model of service.
At the end of chapter 13, he gives a new commandment, Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”
So then in Chapter 14 when he says this line about “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” this new commandment is on everyone’s mind.
In the Gospel we heard today, Jesus finishes by further revealing God’s love to them by saying, “Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
And most of these five chapters are about how God loves his disciples. In fact, I have been reading these four chapters most every Thursday for the last six months as a reminder of how much God loves me too. I highly recommend that you read them too, every Thursday too if you want.
So, Jesus must know they are all thinking about this new commandment, so he continues to expound on it in chapter 15, verse 12, saying: “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.”
With this passage, Jesus is showing us how we are to love one another, “to lay down [our] life for [our] friends.” Because that’s how Jesus has loved us. “Love one another as I loved you.”
Jesus recognized the brokenness in our lives, how we were separated for “the end” for which we were created: union with God. In His great love for us, Jesus took on flesh so that He could suffer and die for us. He recognized our deepest needs and satisfied them by offering His very self!
Let’s be honest, that’s more difficult than showing up for an hour Mass on Sunday, and that is more difficult than simply recognizing that we shouldn’t destroy human life to save human life.
Jesus’ command to love one another by laying down our life doesn’t always mean that we have to be true martyrs who spill our blood for God and neighbor, but it does mean that we have to die to ourselves, we have to die to our selfish desires and put others first, to put God first and to put our family first and to put our neighbors first, and quite often that is not easy.
That is how we love one another as Jesus Christ loved us. We need to recognize the needs of those around us and then give ourselves to them.
But in fact, I have seen many examples of that during this Coronavirus. My staff and I have been calling people and asking how they are doing, and the vast majority say, no, we are fine, our neighbor is taking care of us, or our daughter is taking care of us…
For me that is so beautiful to hear. That is the way it should be, a Christian life well lived looks out for one another, putting them first, and I am very proud of our community for doing that.
Right now, taking care of one another is easy because we are thinking about it, thinking about survival and helping others to survive, and plus there are not a lot of other distractions.
I just pray it will be like this when we return to normal, that we will continue to love one another by putting their needs and their good ahead of ours, not because of pride, not so we can feel good, but because Jesus put our needs ahead of His own.