Confirming (phase 3), - The Last Supper – Second Part: The last discourses of Jesus (step 23) - session 1

I give you a new commandment: love one another

Jn 13: 31-35

When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now is the Son of man glorified, and in him God is glorified; if God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself, and glorify him at once. - (31-32)

First, "when he had gone out" refers to Judas' departure. (okay. now that that's out of the way . . .)

It seems odd to us. We insist on applying this idea of the glorification of Jesus to his resurrection, and see his crucifixion as the excruciatingly (sorry) horrid thing he had to go through to get there. But throughout John's gospel, every time Jesus speaks of being glorified or lifted up he is speaking of his crucifixion. Early on (3:14) he directly connects himself to the bronze serpent lifted up in the desert in the book of Numbers.

The not entirely apt analogy I keep coming back to is that of athletic achievement that we perceive is the result of talent without discipline. Somehow there is less glory in the same achievement from someone who has made it on natural ability rather than someone who has had to scratch and claw and push themselves to their absolute limits for it. There is glory in the sacrifice that outweighs that of the achievement itself. There are other images we might use, too: the sacrificial love of a mother, which is expressed in so many ways, and a soldier who risks his life for his brothers-in-arms, for instance.

Likewise, when Fr. Neuhaus speaks of Good Friday as being something more than the "dismal but necessary prelude" to Easter Sunday, he is encouraging us to enter into all that the sacrifice itself means.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  - (34-35)

Jesus is clearly not speaking of "warm feelings" here. He has washed their feet, but this is but the beginning of his demonstration of how he loves them - and us. It reaches its fulfillment in his glorification on the cross. The resurrection reveals it and raises us to new life with him, but the cross embodies it. And Jesus is telling his disciples to lay down their lives for one another. We are not, in fact, disciples of his unless we do so. The ways in which we are called to this are diverse, but always involve putting others' needs ahead of our own. (But we need to be careful to do this in proper order; some neglect their family in the name of serving others, and that is not God's plan for us.)

How fitting that this follows directly after we have read of St. Paul's correction of the Corinthians for failing to live this out in their own community.