Back To The Circle Of Love

John 14: 15-21

‘If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and he will be in you.

I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’

Recently, before they filed out for Children’s Liturgy, our priest asked a group of children why they come to Mass. There was silence. No one raised a hand. He asked them again. Finally, one child piped up, “Because we have to.”

What about you? Do you love Jesus? Why? Do you go to Mass and do what you do because you have experienced his love and have fallen in love with him - or because you feel you have to? Is your connection to Christ an ideology or a theology or simply a “Good Way” or is it a relationship, a continually intimate encounter with a real person?

John, the beloved disciple, loved Jesus. He wasn’t simply attracted to him because Jesus was so different or excited by him because of the miracles he witnessed. He didn’t just follow Jesus because he was looking for an ideology that would create a new political order of freedom and justice. Naturally, he didn’t follow Jesus just because his parents did nor because he thought that if he didn’t, God would be angry with him. He simply loved Jesus. Peter and the other disciples loved Jesus as well but John was the one who intuitively picked up on who Jesus really was and what he was all about. Of all the male disciples, John was the only one who stood by the cross and watched Jesus die. His love for Jesus took him beyond fear of repercussions; he just had to be there. Jesus loved John, too, and because of John’s great love for him, he revealed himself to John. John was given a gift of seeing beyond the surface of Jesus’ words. He saw the heart of Jesus and understood the Spirit of his words.

In John chapter 13, Jesus finished washing the disciple’s feet and then gave them the commandment to love one another just as he had loved them. Again, in chapter 15 he said, “As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. ‘This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  Of the four Gospel writers, John, alone, recorded these particular words of Jesus.

John understood that love formed the pivotal part not only of Jesus’ message but also of Jesus’ complete nature. John understood that without the holy circle of love relationship, all the words Jesus ever spoke would dwindle into another set of laws. Dead laws. John knew that love within relationship holds the key to kingdom life. It is said that at the end of John’s life all he would say to people was, “Little children, love one another.”

You, as a Christian, understand that loving others is important. That’s something all of us have been taught from when we were little. However, you cannot effectively love unless you have experienced love. You need to have personal encounters with the love of Christ. You need to fall in love with him so that he can reveal himself to you and show you that he is in you, you are in him and you are loved deeply by both him and the Father. How else can you love others? How can you give something if you haven’t received it? 

It’s wonderful if you did have a deep encounter with Jesus at some point in your life. This kind of experience can totally change anyone’s life - but once is not enough. You need to continue to seek him, watch for him and listen to him. You need to yearn to spend time with him the way a lover yearns to spend time with the beloved. Because it’s so easy to be caught up in the demands of everyday life, long stretches of time can slip by and the desire to spend time with him slips by with it. Gradually, the knowledge of his personality can become hazy and the sense of how loved you are also becomes indistinct. He starts to look more like a taskmaster and a stern judge or you start to feel like he’s a distant and disconnected God. He becomes simply an image, someone ‘out there somewhere’ rather than a real person closely connected with your every thought and movement.

If the understanding of how loved you are has slipped away, the one word that will jump out at you in this week’s gospel is ‘commandments’. That’s because when you lose the love relationship, everything in your head gets distilled into law and punishment. You hear what you ‘should’ be doing, you see all that you’re not doing and guilt sets in making you determined to try harder and get your act together or else freezing you in regret. There’s certainly nothing wrong with endeavoring to do what you should be doing but Jesus wants so much more for you. St. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 13 that unless you have love, nothing you do will have any meaning anyway; you’ll be like a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. Jesus is love, so really what St. Paul is saying is that unless you are in Jesus and unless you have a love relationship with the author of all love, your love lacks the power and effectiveness Christ promised to his followers.

If you are walking in relationship with Jesus, however, what will jump out in this week’s gospel is how much love there is in those verses. Jesus instructs his disciples but he also reassures them and gives them great reason to hope. They don’t understand that in a very short while he will die a horrible death by crucifixion but Jesus speaks words of consolation to them anyway. He says he will never leave them. They will not be abandoned or orphaned. He says he will send an Advocate, a helper, someone who will teach them everything they need to know and support them in everything they do. He speaks again of their connection to the Father because of their love for him. Even though they are confused and ignorant of what’s coming and even though he knows they will fall, fail and betray him, Jesus loves them and completely accepts the love they have for him, imperfect as it is. This scripture passage brims over with immense love and promise.

 In case it’s been a while since you have spent time in the company of Jesus, have forgotten what he’s really like and are feeling a certain stern distance separating you from him, I’m going to remind you of the nature of his voice. Go back to 1 Corinthians 13 and Paul’s description of love. Jesus is not only the source of love – he is love. So, from this scripture, you know that Jesus is patient and kind. He is not envious, boastful or arrogant and rude. Jesus does not react out of the wounded ego like we do. He does not insist on his own way; he will not coerce you or brow beat you into doing his will and he shows you the difference between conviction and condemnation. He is not irritable or resentful. He does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but delights in the truth. Have you ever experienced Jesus’ delight in you? After all, you are a baptized child of God and there is a great deal of truth within you. Jesus bears all things, believes all things (he believes in you!), hopes all things and endures all things. His love for you never ends.

 The description of the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians also has some great definitions of Jesus’ nature. He is loving, joyful, peaceful, generous, good, faithful and gentle. These things are not laws. They are the natural characteristics of Christ and he desires to make them your natural characteristics so that you no longer act lovingly because you should but because it’s your desire to share all that you have received. 

           

Do you love Jesus? Do you know why? Have you been with him lately accepting the love he has for you?

Perhaps it’s time.