One of the most often repeated and frequently elaborated commandments in the entire bible is the commandment to “Love one another as I have loved you”. Jesus had begun saying this early on in his teaching. He was asked about which commandment was the greatest. He said the commandment to love God with heart soul mind and strength was the greatest commandment, followed closely by this one, love your neighbor as yourself. But on this, his last night before his crucifixion, he re framed it in a striking way. He had gathered his 12 disciples together to celebrate the Passover meal together. During the meal, Jesus took off his outer garments, took a towel and began going around the table and washing his disciples’ feet. It was uncomfortable for them, to say the least. When he was finished he said “You call me your lord, and master, which I am. If I, your lord and master, washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another’s feet”. Then he gave them this commandment, which was to become the cornerstone of their life and teaching forever: Love one another as I have loved you.
Through out the rest of the meal he repeated this several times and several ways. He said if you keep my commandments (this is my commandment, love one another) my Father and I will come and live with you… you will abide in my love… just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love…this my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. And again, greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friend…this I command you, love one another.
Love one another, as I have loved you. Jesus lived it. His disciples had seen it in action for three and half years and saw it clearly the night they received this commandment. He had taught it, most simply in the sermon on the mount where he taught them to turn the other cheek, bless those who curse you, pray for those who spitefully use you and most famously “treat one another the way you want them to treat you”. And now it was an order, a command, a directive to translate all they had heard and seen into a life of loving one another in the same fashion that he had loved them.
It is clear as you read through the history and letters of the disciples after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into heaven, that this commandment was taken seriously. At the direction of the Holy Spirit they started communities that were based around loving one another as he had loved them. The first offices established in the church were deacons whose job was to oversee care for the widows among them. When the church began to grow outside of its Jewish roots, into the Greek world, they were instructed to teach new believer to take care of the poor and at one point they even took a far reaching collection of money from churches all over the Mediterranean to help take care of the church in Jerusalem who was suffering from a terrific drought.
You also see this commandment to love one another as I have loved you as the focal point of all the admonitions and exhortations in the letters that were written to these churches. To the church at Rome Paul wrote “Keep the debt to love another always on your books”. In Corinth, “The greatest of these is love” and “the love of Christ controls and constrains me”. In Galatia “through love serve one another”. In Ephesus, “Root your lives in loving one another”. James calls it the Royal Law, the King’s Law, Peter urges his readers to “Love one another fervently”. And John, the beloved disciple when he was a young man, wrote these words at the end of more than 70 years of following Christ “Beloved, love one another for he who loves knows God and he who does not, does not have an intimate knowledge of God”.
As I think about the history of the church in the last 2000 years, I see this commandment worked out in all different times and cultures around the world. Followers of Jesus have always found in this commandment the fundamental charge, the prime directive for living in the footsteps of Jesus. I also see how many other problems could have been avoided had we followed closely these words and not gotten off track with lesser things.
Reading these words today, I am reminded that loving others as Christ loves me is not an option but a commandment, an order, a charge to keep. I see it more and more clearly that honest heartfelt discipleship always comes to grips with this command first and foremost. Following this commandment will require you to take up your cross everyday and leave something else behind for the sake of following him and keeping his commandments. But every day I experience the reality that those who keep this command are blessed with God’s very presence in their lives. The price seems small compared with the prize.
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