5th Sunday of Easter - Cycle C

John 13:31-33a, 34-35

"This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." (John 13:35)

Not long after saying these words, Jesus, on the cross, gave the perfect example, the unshakeable definition, of what love looks like. It was not at all neat or easy or pain-free. It was bloody and excruciating. In a word, sacrificial.  

Walking as a disciple of the Lord is often a daunting task. This call to love is perhaps the most daunting of all. Did the disciples stand there at this moment and wonder to themselves how they could ever possibly love like that? Perhaps you and I might have done so. When our minds tend to go in that direction, it’s evident that we’re removing Jesus from the equation and placing all of the work on our own shoulders.  

Learning to love others so absolutely is not for a moment rooted in our ability, our strength, or our goodness. It spills out of our intimacy with the Lord.  It is an overflow from the fruit of growing into an understanding of our own ability to be loved without limit. The Lord simply desires our willingness to accept this love He wants to give. It’s through sitting in those places with Him where He loves the seemingly unlovable parts of us that we slowly begin to have the capacity to love others in the most unlovable places.  

Think of Peter, who, just a short while before, had denied even knowing Jesus, now living out his capacity to be loved. How freeing must it have been for him to realize that this command was about nothing other than the Lord loving through him? There was no other response for him than to go and do the same for others.  

And, for you and me, as disciples of Jesus, there should be no other response. 

If that seems hard for you, I invite you to spend some time sitting with the Lord this week, not concentrating on loving others, but simply receiving his love for you first.