So, What's New

It's just after the feet washing. That is, Jesus putting on a towel and a basin and washing His disciples' feet. John 13 from verse 12, and I'm reading from the ESV. When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garment and resumed his place, he said to them, "Do you understand what I have done for you? You call me teacher and lord, and you are right, for so I am."

"If I then, your lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you ought also to wash one another's feet. For I have given you an example that you should also do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them." I'm not speaking to all of you.

"I know whom I have chosen, but the scripture will be fulfilled. He who ate bread has lifted his heel against me. I'm telling you this now before it takes place, that when it does take place, you may believe that I am he. Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever receives the one I send receives me, and whoever receives me receives the one who sent me." After saying these things, Jesus was troubled in spirit and testified, "Truly, truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me."

The disciples looked at one another, uncertain of whom he spoke. One of his disciples, whom Jesus loved, was reclining at the table at Jesus' side. So Simon Peter motioned to him to ask Jesus of whom he was speaking. So that disciple, leaning back against Jesus, said to him, "Lord, who is it?" Jesus answered, "It is he to whom I will give this morsel of bread when I have dipped it."

So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas, the son of Simon Iscariot. Then after he had taken the morsel, Satan entered into him. And Jesus said to him, "What you are going to do, do quickly." Now no one at the table knew why he had said this to him. Some thought that because Judas had the money bag, Jesus was telling him to buy what we need for the feast, or that he should give something to the poor.

So after receiving the morsel of bread, he immediately went out, and it was night. When he had gone out, Jesus said, "Now the son of man is glorified, and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once." Little children, yet a little while I'm with you. You will seek me, and just as I had said to the Jews, so I may also say to you, "Where I'm going, you cannot come."

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you. You also are to love one another. And by this, all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Simon Peter said to him, "Lord, where are you going?" Jesus answered him, "Where I'm going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow afterward."

Peter said to him, "Lord, why can't I follow you now? I will lay down my life for you." Jesus answered, "Will you lay down your life for me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the rooster will not crow until you have denied me three times." So far the reading.

And just take special note, the text this morning are the verses 34 and 35, where Jesus details the new commandment. I want you to think with me for a moment how it is that you might start a typical conversation, maybe even outside under the patio after the service. You'd be there with a group of men or women because men and women don't talk to each other after church. It's just the guys on no. No.

You're free to talk with whoever. Don't get me wrong. But how do you strike up a conversation? I know people use typical lines that serve as icebreakers. An icebreaker is to break down some barriers to engage one another in conversation.

So I like it when somebody takes an interest in me and particularly my life, and they might ask me a question as an opener, like "How's your week been?" or "What's new?" or if you're a young person in church, it might be "What's up?" I think that's it. And often those kinds of opening lines are sure to get a result, and people do respond.

I know I like to respond when someone's interested in my week, but then, again, the older I get, it can be hard to think. Well, what was new about my past week? What's been different? What's worth sharing? What's worth talking about?

Well, I want to invite you this morning to ask the same question of our text. What's new? What's up? And you hear Jesus speaking: "A new commandment I give to you."

"Love one another as I've loved you, so you must love one another." And it's just because Jesus says it's new that it should cause us to wonder to wonder why or what is new or how it's new and what's changed. What could be new about a commandment to love? If this is a new commandment, then what was wrong with the old? We don't like change.

"I like the way it was. Thank you very much." The old had been around for a long time, and throughout the Old Testament, it had seemed to have served God's people very well. And now here comes Jesus and he says, "If you want to love, it will have to be according to my new commandment."

And I'm not merely suggesting it, putting it out there as an idea, but I'm putting it to you as a command. So what's new? What should we see in this command that is new? Well, to begin with, it's new in scope, that is, the intended range or what it is to cover.

The best way to see this is to compare it specifically with the Old Testament command to love. All the other gospel writers have recorded for us what Jesus identifies as the greatest of all commands, that is, all gospel writers except this one, John. They have the great commandment of love, a refrain that's echoed throughout the Old Testament. I think most of us would know it off by heart.

"Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. This is the first and great commandment, and the second is like it: love your neighbour as yourself." So whatever we say about love, we can't say that it's new in the sense that it's brand new, never heard it before, never seen it before.

Love for others is woven right throughout the Old Testament. Originally, it's quoted in Leviticus 19. And I mean, if it's in Leviticus, then it's part of the Old Testament law. It's enshrined in everything the law was intended to accomplish. Rather, the answer to our question this morning lies in our understanding of this word, new, the Greek word for new.

It doesn't imply recent or different. What it says is there is something fresh, something new, something novel about this new love, something totally unexpected, something without any precedent. And looking closely at the text, we can see what it is. Jesus is saying the newness of my command to love is found in new relationships that Jesus creates. The Old Testament law said, "Love your neighbour."

The thought was to love your neighbour as yourself. So realistically, the only neighbours that were involved were your Jewish neighbours only. It was unthinkable that love would be inclusive of any other race of people outside of the Jewish nation. Gentiles were not to be loved. Gentiles were understood as sinners, those whom God obviously wished to destroy.

That thought kept their loving within limits. Can I say convenient limits? Like love in a marriage or love for the family or love for your blood relatives, and that's it. That's as far as I'm prepared to love. You loved your neighbour, therefore, as you loved your own countrymen, and then only to the extent that you're prepared to love yourself.

And no self respecting Jew would behave in any other way. But Jesus issues a new command, and he tells us that relationship would no longer be limited to any blood ties or any physical boundaries or any one particular race of people. Your neighbour is any person whom Jesus loved, any person whom Jesus died on the cross for. Jesus was about to establish a new community in which all believers will be brothers and sisters in him, family, not merely neighbours, but family.

Love was to take on fresh new meaning because there would be a new level of intimacy among his disciples. Whole communities of people were to come together, and they would be connected spiritually. So instead of "Love your neighbour," Jesus cranks it up a level and says, "A new commandment I give to you: love one another." So it's increased in terms of scope. But what else is new?

The second kind of newness or freshness in this command is about quality or the standard that Jesus applies. The Old Testament said, "Love your neighbour as yourself," but Jesus cranks it up when he says, "As I have loved you, so you must love one another." "As I have loved you." And the best way to see this, how it works, is to compare it with the standard for loving in the old command. The old command said, "Love your neighbour as you love yourself."

And what did loving neighbour as you love yourself actually amount to? A vague feeling of goodwill, the desire to look after your own kind, a sense of pride in the particular race of people that you belong to, a need to defend your neighbour because of a common enemy. Yes, it was that much, at least. But if we're feeling generous, love for neighbour was a little bit more. But this is not the measure of love that Jesus is calling us to.

Jesus says, "Love one another as I have loved you," not as you love yourself. Jesus is prepared to talk about himself, even before the cross, as the model or the pattern for loving. And in the context of John chapter 13, Jesus has gone to extraordinary length to teach them about his love. In the introduction, John 13, verse one, John records, "Having loved his own who were in the world, he now showed them the full extent of his love." Not one of them that night stooped as low as Jesus did and washed feet, but Jesus did.

And Jesus taught them saying, "Now that I, your Lord and teacher, have washed your feet, you should also wash one another's feet." The fact is that the God of the universe would take on human form to wash feet, dirty feet, feet that were walking the dirty dusty roads of Palestine, feet that would cause people even to die and suffer for enemies. Extraordinary. Amazing to say the least. In the letter of love that John writes about this "one another" statement in chapter four, he says, "This is love: not that we loved God because we did not, but he loved us and sent his son as the atoning sacrifice for our sins."

The measure of this love is the standard that we've already looked at in 1 Corinthians 13. "Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast."

"It is not proud. It is not rude. It is not self seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails."

By this measure, says Jesus, love one another. But it begs the obvious question this morning, doesn't it? How? How can we do this? And the short answer to that question is in Him.

In Him. Jesus is not only the model or the pattern for loving, but He's also the power for loving. Jesus is the force we have to love one another according to the model He gave us. We looked at this earlier in the service. John offers his own commentary on this command in his letter.

"I'm writing to you a new command. Its truth is seen in him and in you," he says. The power or the dynamic for shaping you and me in order to keep this command is in Him, and then in us, and then in one another. How much we need this? How much we need to be caught up in this?

In the community that God gives us to grow in Him, the community God gives us to raise our children, the community God gives us to grow older, and the community God gives us all to mature in the great things of God. You see, this loving one another cannot be achieved by human energy or human willpower.

I can't stand here in the pulpit with my fingers crossed hoping for the best. We need a common force outside of us to mould us and shape us together to become the community that knows how to love one another as Jesus has loved us. Today, this year, in this present season of the church, we need the Holy Spirit to empower us in this love. So what's new? The message.

The next verse adds one important dimension to this command. There is a fresh new impact on the world, it happens because of the community shaped by Jesus' kind of love. "All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another." In the context in the Gospel of John, we're one night away from the crucifixion, one night away from His death.

Remember how it is: Jesus is about to leave this world. Now the only example of true love that the world has ever known was about to be taken from them. But even in death, He was to love them, to love them as He said He would to the end. He was about to prove that by dying on the cross.

But that act of dying would cause Him to be removed from the world. These original disciples, all of them, must have loved Jesus very much, all except Judas, of course. By now he had left them to betray Jesus. But the rest of them were learning from Jesus; whatever he said, they would do. Several of them had gone ahead to prepare the upper room for their last meal together.

All of them had nice clean feet, thanks to Jesus. Peter's about to tell Jesus that he's prepared to die for him if necessary. It's true, of course; their love was not as strong as they thought it was because Peter would in fact not die. Truth is, he would deny Jesus three times over. When it comes to his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, at that time, the disciples would scatter.

They would flee. Yet, nevertheless, we have to commend them for their love for Jesus. They did truly love Him, but they did not really love Jesus or one another with anything like the love Jesus had for them. The other gospel writers record this same incident in the upper room that night, and they all mention the kind of conversation that was taking place. Can you believe it?

The disciples were actually arguing over who should be counted as greatest in the kingdom of God. They were in dispute over positions of power and authority that they hoped to occupy in the new order of the kingdom. Earlier on, when Jesus entered Jerusalem for the last time, one overly ambitious mother of two of the disciples even got involved in the same dispute herself, advocating for her sons. But it's in precisely this kind of context, with this kind of mood in the room, so to speak, that Jesus is telling them that their love for one another, their ability to love one another, is going to communicate a message to the world. If the world is going to see a community loving one another, they'll know it because that community are my followers.

That community will be my disciples, and it's what disciples do. When the world sees a church loving one another, then they will know that those people are following Jesus. We're not members of the local duck club or the local service club. We are members of a community committed to loving one another because of Jesus.

So for this ragged, rough collection of 11 men in that upper room that night, a huge change was called for, and it certainly did not happen straight away. Nothing really happened until after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, after the ascension, at Pentecost. At Pentecost, Jesus' spirit, that is to say His very real presence, was poured out upon them and enabled them to love. The Spirit gave them power to love. And as a result, the church was born and community happened because of their love for one another.

Now they just didn't have the model for love and the pattern for loving, but they also had the power to love. In body, Jesus was taken away from them, but in spirit, He was closer to them than He ever could be. In fact, the following chapters in John's gospel are devoted to teaching us how the Holy Spirit remains and does His work through us. By definition, the calling to be disciples became the reason they could love one another. We could say it's what happens to disciples by default.

Disciples can't go on living in the world without being drawn together, without the one another experience of loving one another in community, in the church. I'd love to go on this morning and tell you about the early church and how it is that they really did love one another. In the weeks to follow, we may see more of that, of loving one another at work. But this morning, if you identify as a disciple of Jesus, as a follower of Him, let me say this: You are a lover.

You are a lover, a one another loving person. Disciples love one another. You kind of come under a new realm, if you like, and you've moved from someone who was used to darkness and shallow relationships with one another, to someone who loves light, someone who enjoys a deeper relationship with others. What's new, you ask?

Well, you've come under a new authority. This is a new commandment from Jesus to all of us. Maybe I can illustrate this way, speaking negatively for a moment. If your life is constantly lived under the influence of alcohol, then you are under the control of alcohol. It'll become the standard by which you interact with others, and constantly you'll be on the lookout for your next drink.

But this is not limited to alcohol. There are lots of controlling influences in our lives, and all of them are competing for absolute control. Whatever they are, they make quick work of us. They want to devour us and then spit us out. But speaking positively now, if you are a disciple, you come under a new realm.

You're under the influence of a new command to love as Jesus loves, and it will become the standard by which you and I love one another. And it shines and it's what draws us together and it delivers a message to the world. In the church, the community of disciples, in you and me, the world will see Jesus. And there is no darkness so black that the light cannot shine. The most compelling evidence for Jesus in the world today is in this: our love for one another.

We become light in the darkness, and the potential is huge. The eyes of the world are locked in darkness. People grope around like blind men. But the love of the local church is a compelling light shining bright on Jesus. No wonder Paul repeats the exhortation to love again and again.

As the New Testament church is established, Paul writes to these early churches and he talks to them about this new commandment of Jesus again and again. To the Colossians: "And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity." To the church in Rome: "Let no debt remain outstanding except the continuing debt to love one another." And to the Corinthians: "And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love." The apostle John does something similar in his letters.

Examples of how that works out in practice are everywhere throughout the writings of the apostles. "Carry each other's burdens," Paul says to the church in Galatia, "and in this way you will fulfil the law of Christ. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus. Always try to be kind to each other and everyone else."

We could go on. There are endless examples of how this love applies in the New Testament. At the end of the day, we say along with Paul that this love surpasses knowledge, our knowledge, even our understanding. This love surpasses that because it is of God. It's from Him, not from us.

But it is for us, for each one of us. And so at Open House and in your small group and in your family and in your marriage, in fact, without it, we're stuffed. There's no human endeavour more important than this new command to love one another. It's how the world will know Jesus. It is as if Jesus has invested His gospel, the good news, in us so that everyone will know about His love.

Contrary to what many people think, people don't go to where the action is or where the events are, but people will go to where the love is. Amen. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we thank you for raising up a community here in this place that is committed to your new commandment to love, to love one another. We thank you for our privileged participation in it and what that means for each one of us individually, but also our marriages, our families, our wider families included, and the communities where we go out into the world week in and week out.

Well, thank you that we are loved not just by you, but by brothers and sisters who want to uphold Jesus as the standard for loving, that sacrificial love, that love that caused Him to wash feet even on the night He was to be betrayed. Now fill us with that same love, we pray. Work in us powerfully through your word and through your Holy Spirit. Take away anything else in our lives that might hinder or control us or prevent us in some way from loving one another.

Help us to do it in the strength that only you can provide as we pray together in the strong name of our saviour, the Lord Jesus, and in His name. Amen.