LOVING AS JESUS DID

Reflections on the Fifth Sunday of Easter: Acts 14:21-27, Revelation 21:1-5a, John 13:31-33a,34-35

Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another”. As we know, this ‘new commandment’ is not new. Leviticus 19:18 taught it long before Jesus. So what is new about Jesus’ new commandment? He adds a radical twist: “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” The newness lies not in ‘what’ we love, but in ‘how’ we love. Jesus transforms love from a moral duty into a divine calling – to love as Jesus did.  Let us explore three ways to live this “new commandment” today.

1. Love First: 

The first way to love like Jesus is to love first. Jesus’ love is not a reward we earn but a gift of His grace.  It is not based on our merit or worthiness but on Jesus’ initiative. He loves first “even while we were “still sinners” (Romans 5:8) and “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). As the gospels testify, those whom Jesus loved were those who were deemed ‘unmeriting’ or ‘unworthy’ of God’s love. The opening lines of the 13th chapter of John’s Gospel (from which today’s gospel is taken) begin with the affirmation that Jesus’ love for his disciples is unconditional: “Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end”.

Jesus does not hesitate to wash the feet of Judas, knowing full well that he will betray Him. This is the love that does not wait for us to become good or deserving. Do we love as Jesus did? Do we love others first? How often do we wait for others to show kindness before we reciprocate? How often do we withhold love because we believe someone must first earn it? Jesus’ way of loving is to extend grace before it is deserved, to offer love without expecting to be loved in return. Love is a gift. When we love first, we imitate Christ’s love that is extended to us unconditionally. Jesus’ love is a model for our relationships: to forgive before being asked, to help before being thanked, and to love without counting the cost.

2. Love beyond boundaries:

The second aspect of loving like Jesus is to breach human-made frontiers that keep us from one another. Jesus teaches us that love should prioritise those we generally tend to avoid: sinners, outcasts, tax collectors, and Gentiles. In his new commandment, Jesus is not merely talking about love within a closed community of believers but about love that is expansive and inclusive. Jesus loves without distinction, without regard for ethnicity, social status, or any of the human-made divisions that separate us. The first reading demonstrates how the early Christian Church imitates this facet of Jesus’ love by embracing radical inclusivity. Paul and Barnabas breach cultural and religious boundaries to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles, and upon their return to Antioch, they report that “God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles”.

Here, we see a powerful example of love overcoming the dividing walls between groups of people. Paul, once a zealous Pharisee, became the apostle to the Gentiles, proclaiming that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek” (Galatians 3:28). Just as Jesus broke barriers by loving that society rejected, Paul and Barnabas continue that mission by extending the love of Christ to all. Loving as Jesus did means embracing those who are different - those of another culture, belief, or background. It is probably easy to love those who are like us or “to love those who love us” but Jesus calls us to love the outsider, the forgotten, even the enemy. In a world divided by politics, race, and ideology, we are called to build bridges, not walls, just as Jesus did.

3. Love painfully:

Finally, to love as Jesus did means to love through suffering. Jesus’ love is not easy; it is a love that takes us to the cross. Jesus’ declaration of the “new commandment” is situated in the context of the discussion around ‘glorification’ and the betrayal of Judas. Jesus is fully aware that one of His closest friends is about to turn against Him, yet he is convinced that this time of suffering is also the time of glorification. He chooses this time of betrayal to command the disciples to love one another. The ultimate expression of love and glorification is the sacrifice of the cross.

The “hour” of Jesus’ glorification is also the hour of His death. Jesus’ glory is not in His power or dominance but in His willingness to suffer for the sake of love. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). Jesus’ glory is paradoxically revealed in His suffering love, which is not an obstacle to love or love’s failure, but an integral part of it and its fullest expression. This kind of suffering love is transformative and is the key to the dream of the ‘new earth and the new heavens’ (first reading), the hope of the new Jerusalem, where there is no more death or mourning, wailing or pain.

Let us resolve then to love as Jesus did: taking the initiative to love beyond boundaries and accepting its cost.