5th Sunday of Easter – Year C: The True Newness Is Love

The True Newness Is Love

“I give you a new commandment: love one another.”
John 13:31-35

With the final two Sundays of the Easter season, we enter the immediate preparation for the feasts of the Ascension and Pentecost. These are the Sundays of farewell. This Sunday’s Gospel and that of next week present excerpts from Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples during the Last Supper. It is his testament before the Passion and death.
Why revisit these texts during Eastertide? The Church follows the ancient tradition of reading, during this period, the five chapters of the Gospel of John that recount the Last Supper (chapters 13–17), where Jesus presents the meaning of his death and his "Passover".
Moreover, since it is a legacy, a will is only opened after death. Jesus leaves his possessions, his inheritance, to us, his heirs. His greatest bequest is the commandment of love—the theme of today’s Gospel.

1. One word links today’s three readings: NEW or NEWNESS

• In the first reading, from the Acts of the Apostles, we hear about the newness that Paul and Barnabas share with the Church in Antioch, which had sent them on mission: “how God had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.”
• In the second reading, from Revelation, John sees “a new heaven and a new earth” and “the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God”, and hears a Voice saying: “Behold, I make all things new.”
• In the Gospel, Jesus gives us “a new commandment.”

We live in a society where boredom is widespread, especially among young people. We need constant stimulation, novelty, to make our days more exciting and attractive. Sadly, we often confuse newness with variety. The novelties presented to us are often recycled versions of the old, which age instantly, leaving us disappointed and dissatisfied.

On the other hand, true newness frightens us because it shakes up our principles and our lifestyle. It demands that we be “born again”, as Jesus said to Nicodemus (John 3:3).

This is true not only for each Christian, but also for every Christian community and the entire Church. Faithfulness to Tradition must not disguise the temptation to cling to the past, to old and outdated traditions. The frequent criticism that the Church is stuck in the past should prompt us to question our openness to the renewing breath of the Spirit.

Listening to and welcoming the Word—which proposes newness—requires great openness of mind and heart. The danger lies in closing ourselves off to what is new, which always brings some disruption to our lives. Even worse is when this Word sounds “old” to our ears simply because we’ve heard it so many times! Let us pray, then, that the Lord may make us “new wineskins” ready to receive his “new wine”!

2. A NEW GLORY

“When Judas had gone out [from the Upper Room], Jesus said: ‘Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.’”

When we hear today’s Gospel, our attention naturally turns to the “new commandment”, but that newness is introduced by something else—something incomprehensible, shocking, and even scandalous, because it seems to overturn our perception of reality.
When Judas leaves to betray him, instead of expressing sorrow and pain, Jesus speaks of “glorification”—and he does so five times. Jesus links his own glory, and that of God, to Judas’s betrayal! What kind of glory is this? The glory of being lifted up on the cross, for the cross is the supreme expression of God’s love.
Judas represents the mindset of the “victorious” Messiah; Jesus, instead, reveals himself as the “defeated” Messiah. The true Messiah follows the logic of love. “This is why the Father loves me: because I lay down my life to take it up again” (John 10:17), said the Good Shepherd in last Sunday’s Gospel.

This inverted vision of reality hits us hard in a world constantly chasing after “vain glory.” Let us ask ourselves: what kind of glory do I seek in my thoughts, desires, fantasies, and motivations? The kind of glory we pursue reveals whether we have faith or not. Jesus tells us: “How can you believe, when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the only God?” (John 5:44).

3. A NEW COMMANDMENT

“My little children, I am with you only a little longer. I give you a new commandment: love one another.” (See also John 15:12 and 15:17).

What makes this commandment new?
– It is new because it is neither spontaneous nor natural; it doesn’t arise from instinct.
– It is new because it is rooted in selfless giving, not reciprocity.
– It is new because it abolishes the old “eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth” ethic.
– It is new because it surpasses the wisdom of the old commandment: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18).
– It is new because now the standard of love is Jesus: “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.”
– It is new especially because it will never grow old. What exists in time eventually ages. But what belongs to the “new heavens and new earth” will never age, because it shares in the eternity of God.
– It is new because it is final and definitive—eschatological, belonging to the end times. Faith and hope will pass away, but only love will remain (1 Corinthians 13:13). For love is the very essence of God: “God is love” (1 John 4:8).
And thus, there is no longer any sense in separating love for God and love for our brothers and sisters, or speaking of “vertical” and “horizontal” love—because love is one.

This kind of love will be the supreme mark of the disciple of Jesus:
“By this everyone will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another.”

4. How can we RECEIVE this NEW LOVE?

They say you can’t command the heart. So how can we acquire this love? By contemplating it in the Eucharist, where this love is celebrated. “Let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2). By gazing lovingly and tenderly at the Crucified One, where this love was poured out. Or, in the words of Saint Daniel Comboni, addressing his missionaries:
“Always keep your eyes fixed on Jesus Christ, love him tenderly, and strive to understand ever more deeply what it means that a God died on the cross for the salvation of souls. If, with living faith, they contemplate and savour the mystery of such great love, they will rejoice in the chance to lose everything and to die for Him and with Him.” (Writings, 2721–2722)

Fr. Manuel João Pereira Correia, mccj

Gospel reflection
John 13:31-33a.34-35

For us, the heirs of the Greek thought, glorification is the achievement of the approval and the praise of people. It is equivalent to fame, obtained by whoever reaches a prestigious position. All desire it, crave for and fight for it and that is why we turn away from God. The Jews who “seek praise from one another, instead of seeking the glory which comes from the only God” (Jn 5:44), who “preferred the favorable opinion of people, rather than God’s approval” (Jn 12:43) cannot believe in Jesus in whom the “glory” that attracts the eyes and the attention of people is not manifested. In him, the glory of God becomes visible since its first appearance in the world: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us; and we have seen his glory” (Jn 1:14).

God is glorified when he deploys his force and performs deeds of salvation when he shows his love for people. In the Old Testament, his glory was manifested when he freed his people from slavery. “My people will see his glory—promises the prophet—because God comes to save them” (Is 35:2,4).

In the first verses of today’s Gospel (vv. 31-32) the verb ‘glorify’ appears five times: “The Son of Man is glorified and God is glorified in him”; if God is glorified in him, in turn, “he will glorify him and will glorify him at once.” A redundancy, a verbosity that almost annoys; a solemnity that seems excessive and out of place in the context in which these words are spoken by Jesus. We are in the Upper Room and a few hours is missing to his capture and his death sentence.

Who does not know in advance how the events took place is inclined to think that God is about to amaze everyone with a prodigy, is going to give a demonstration of his power by humiliating his enemies.

None of this. Jesus is glorified because Judas left to reach an agreement with the high priests on how to stop the master (v. 31). Something unheard of, outrageous and incomprehensible to people happen: in Jesus who journeys towards his passion and death, who delivers himself into the hands of the executioners and is nailed to the cross, the “glory” of God is manifested.

A few days before Jesus made it clear in what consists his glory: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified … unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it will produce much fruit” (Jn 12: 23-24). The glory that awaits him is the moment when giving his life, he will reveal to the world how great God’s love for man is. This is the only glory he also promises to his disciples.

The passage continues with the presentation of the new commandment, prefaced by a surprising phrase: little children … (v. 33). The disciples are not children, but Jesus’ brothers. Why call them this way? To understand the meaning of his words, the time when they are pronounced should be kept in mind. At the Last Supper, Jesus realized that he only has a few hours of life and feels the need to dictate his will. As the children considered sacred words spoken by the father on his deathbed, so Jesus wants his disciples to imprint in their mind and heart what he is going to say.

Here is his testament: “I give you a new commandment: love one another just as I have loved you!” (v. 34). To underline the importance he will repeat it two more times before walking to the Gethsemane: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:12). “This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you” (Jn 15:17). He speaks like someone who wants to leave an inheritance: “I give”—he says (v. 34). We ourselves could have chosen a gift among many that he possessed, all—I think—could have asked the power to work miracles. He offered instead a new commandment.

Commandment for us is tantamount to taxation, a heavy commitment to fulfill, a weight to bear. Some believe that happiness is attained by those who are smart, who enjoy life in contravention of the “ten words” of God. Others are convinced that those who manage to keep the Ten Commandments deserve paradise while the unfaithful ones must be severely punished. This is a still widespread conviction and must be urgently corrected because it is extremely pernicious; it is a fruit of a disfigured image of God.

A simple example: If a doctor insists that his patient stops smoking, he does not do so to restrict his freedom, to deprive him of a pleasure, to test him, but because he wants his own good. Secretly, trying not to get noticed, the patient can continue to smoke only to find himself later with damaged lungs. The doctor does not punish him for this (did not hurt him, but he did it to himself). He will always try to have him recover. And God—by the way—Is a good doctor, “heals all sickness” (Ps 103:3). Giving us his commandment Jesus shows himself an unparalleled friend. He has shown us, not with words, but with the gift of life, how to realize the fullness of our existence in this world.

It is a new commandment. In what sense? Is it not already written in the Old Testament: “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18)? Let us grasp where the novelty is.

Regarding what the Old Testament recommended the second part is certainly new: “as I have loved you, you also must love one another” (v. 34). The measure of love proposed to us by Jesus is not the one we use for ourselves, but what he has had for us.

It is not said that we love ourselves: we cannot stand our limits, faults, and miseries. If we make a mistake, a bad impression, a gesture of which we should be ashamed of, we even to get punish ourselves. Then the commandment is new because it is not spontaneous for people to love those who do not deserve it or cannot reciprocate. It is not normal to do good to one’s own enemies.

Jesus reveals a new love: he loved those who needed his love to be happy. He loved the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the wicked, the corrupt, his executioners because only in loving them he could get them out of their condition of meanness, misery, and sin.

It is the gratuitous and unmotivated love of which God has given proof in the Old Testament when he chose his people: “The Lord—says Moses to the Israelites—has bound himself to you and has chosen you, not because you are the most numerous among all the peoples (on the contrary you are the least) … but because of his love for you” (Dt 7:7-8). This is why John says: “I am not writing you a new commandment, but reminding you of an old one … if you love your brother you remain in the light” (1 Jn 2:7-10).

But the great novelty of this commandment is another one. It is the fact that no one before Jesus has ever attempted to build a society based on a love like his. The Christian community is set as an alternative, as a new proposal to all the old societies of the world, to those based on competition, meritocracy, money, and power. It is this love that must “glorify” the disciples of Christ.

By the mouth of Jeremiah, God announced: “The time is coming when I will forge a new covenant with the people of Israel” (Jer 31:31). The old covenant was drawn up on the basis of the Ten Commandments. The new alliance is linked to the compliance with a unique, new commandment: love to the brother, such as that Jesus was capable.

Jesus concludes his “testament” by saying: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another” (v. 35). We know that the fruits do not make the tree alive, however, they are signs that the tree is alive. Good works do not make our communities Christian, but these works give evidence that our communities are animated by the Spirit of the Risen One.

Christians are not people different from others; they do not wear badges, do not live out of the world. What distinguishes them is the logic of the gratuitous love, that of Jesus and that of the Father

Fernando Armellini 
Italian missionary and biblical scholar
https://sundaycommentaries.wordpress.com