AS I LOVED YOU

V EASTER SUNDAY - John 13:31-33,34-35

We never grow tired of hearing the word love, even though many times it is simply empty. Despite that, we go on dreaming of true love, an everlasting love that may fill us to the brim. Is such love possible? Looking at our human frailty, such love is more than human. Such love is only possible if we receive it as a gift from God because it is divine love.

Nowadays, many people associate love with passion and sex. For that, the Greeks used the word eros. In the end, love is reduced to a passion that lasts but a moment. Is this passion that demands to be satisfied the true love that I long for? It comes and goes… and it disappears in a fleeting moment, leaving me in pain and with a sense of emptiness. 

Many times, the word love is a cover-up for selfishness. I put myself in the centre of the world and everything else should be about me. I behave as if everything should be at my service. In this case, love is not giving and sharing, but receiving and grasping. In the name of love, I impose myself on others and exploit them.

True love expresses and comes from God’s holiness. In Leviticus 19:2, God tells his people: “You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.” As a consequence of this holiness, God gives the commandment of love: “you shall love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:18).

According to this command, self-love is the measure of the love the others. If I feel bad or even hurt about something done to me, then I should not do the same to others. However, the commandment of love demands more than that: I should do to the others what I desire others do to me. It is difficult to achieve that.

In this Sunday’s gospel, Jesus presents us with what he calls a new commandment:

“I give you a new commandment:

love one another;

just as I have loved you,

you also must love one another.”

We may ask where is the novelty of this commandment. It sounds quite old. The call to love is old, but the measure of that love is completely new. We should love not as we love ourselves, but as Christ has loved us. Christ’s love is the ideal for our love. Love led him to put his life at the service of humanity to the point of shedding his life for us. Jesus explained that to Nicodemus: 

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” (Jn 3:16).

In the letter to the Ephesians, Paul wrote:

“Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her” (Ep 5:25-26).

That’s why nothing can separate us from the love of Christ.

“For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Ro 8:38-39).

Jesus invites us to learn from him to love, putting ourselves at the service of others.