John 13:18-38

“There’s One”

There is a lot of difficult stuff going down in this passage. Jesus announces that one of the disciples will betray Him. Judas takes the bread and Satan enters into him. Jesus tells him, “What you are about to do, do quickly.” Then there is Peter. It was nice of him to say that he would lay down his life for Jesus but Jesus had to break the news to him that not only was Peter not prepared to lay down his life for Him; Peter would in fact deny that he even knew Jesus that very night. Yes, a lot of difficult stuff.

Between these two disciples Jesus takes the time to give a new commandment. I have always been attracted to verses 34 and 35. “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Why is this command new. We had already been instructed, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Yes, we had, but this goes beyond loving our neighbor as ourself. Some of us don’t do a very good job of loving ourselves. (Though most of us manage well enough.) This takes the commandment out of the matrix of how we treat ourselves and lifts it to the plane of how Jesus treats us. “...as I have loved you.” He let Judas betray Him. He could have stopped him in any number of ways, but He allowed Judas to make his own choice even as Peter would make his own choice a few hours later.

There’s more. This is how people will recognize a genuine Christ follower. Not doctrine. Not piety. Not a certain manner of dress or speech. Not by how you vote. Not by miracles. Not by gravitas. Not by ritual. Not by any number of things that we normally use to identify “believers.” Love for one another is the way Jesus said the world would know we are His. How did we miss that?