Today’s Scripture

Psalm 110        Acts 13:44-52     Revelation 21:1-5      John 13:31-35

 

            Did you ever find an old thing, something that was either lost or put away for a long time?  When you uncovered it, you liked it.  It was like new again.  You took time and effort and restored it.  As I see some restored cars, they even look newer today than they did when they were new.

 

            It is at the last supper.  Judas leaves to consummate the betrayal.  Knowing what is now in place to occur, Jesus says, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him,” [v. 31].  When Jesus lets Judas go out of that door without stopping what is about to happen, the work he is accomplishing and that our heavenly father sent him to do is as good as done.  Jesus is glorified by his suffering and death for you.  God is glorified because Jesus loves God and you both perfectly, that he obeys his father’s will perfectly and sacrifices himself so you will be perfect in God’s sight again.  The world looks at Jesus’ suffering and death as a scourge, something nasty that Jesus should never have had to suffer.  To those who know why this happened it is the greatest glory that one can imagine.  Jesus laid down his life for all sinners.

 

            Jesus tells us that we cannot go where he is going.  It is because not one person can do what he is about to do.  Looking ahead to his ascension (which we will celebrate here in eleven more days) not one of us can ascend until that time he comes to take each one at the time God has ordained.

 

            In both today’s Psalm and the passage from Revelation, Jesus’ heavenly glory, given by God the Father, is proclaimed.  Today Jesus sits at the right hand of God with all authority in heaven and on earth.  Today and as we will join him at the last day, Jesus reigns to all eternity in the new heaven and new earth, the new Jerusalem where every tear will be wiped away.  Death and mourning will be replaced by everything new.  God, at that time, will restore everything in the perfect and holy nature, portrayed as beautiful as his bride, that was his before rebellion and sin.

 

            Jesus looks at his disciples just before his final passion.  Jesus looks at you and me from that moment of his passion.  He gives a “new command.”  It is to love one another as he has loved us.

 

            The disciples had been arguing amongst themselves who was the greatest and who would get to sit at his right and left hand.  How is that any different than us here today?  We have found some pretty unique ways of arguing, not face to face, but building ourselves up as we tear another down.  It happens in families and homes.  It happens in the workplace.  It happens here at Immanuel as one pleads his or her case for this or that. 

 

            Jesus could easily have snapped his fingers as asked, and any one of the disciples would have groveled at his feet to please him for one simple favor.  Instead Jesus washed their feet.  In a simple and extraordinary way, he showed his love for them and gave the example of how they were to continue with each other.  In a simple and extraordinary way he shows you and me too, how to serve each other and all others in this world in nothing but love.  It is a new a refreshing way in a world that thrives on wealth, power and conquest.  It is a new and refreshing way in a society that excels in one-upmanship.  It is the oldest way in all of creation.

 

            God created the world out of love.  He created the world for his crowning point of creation, man.  All things in this world he gave to man.  He gave man and woman in perfect compatibility and love for him and each other.  That perfect love was destroyed by sin.

 

            We celebrate Mother’s Day as an example of love.  Ideally mothers show the perfect love, giving of themselves for their families, for their children.  There are a great many sacrifices mothers make so their children are well cared for and feel loved.  And children love their mothers.  There are also times when mothers are frustrated by the lack of return for their love and how motherhood may limit other interests and aspirations of a woman.  There are times when children feel the mother’s protecting arms are restricting to them and want to break free.  Those feelings sound like a person’s relationship with God, doesn’t it?  We think God restricts and limits us. 

 

            A new command (that is really the original command) is, put your selfish pride aside and love each other as I (Jesus) have loved you.  Jesus put all of anything he had, eternal glory and dominion, aside to serve and to save you.  That brought glory to God and God glorified him, restoring him to eternal honor and glory in the heavenly realms.  Because he did this, he also restores you to his likeness to sit with him in eternal honor and glory in the heavenly realms.

 

            You and I glorify God each time we reach out in love for each other.  It begins with forgiveness from the heart as we pray, “Forgive us as we forgive others.”  It begins with love that is outpouring from within and not merely in appreciation for a kindness shown you.  It begins with love that is in response and imitation of the love God gives you, forgiving all sins, not just those that are convenient and leaves one with the upper hand.  It begins with love that imitates Christ, coming to save and not to judge.

 

            There was a boy in the park flying his kite one day.  A passerby noticed the boy was blind, but flying the kite by himself.  In conversation, the passerby asked, “How can you tell the kite is doing what you want it?”  The blind boy replied, “I can feel it tugging on the string.”

 

            We cannot always see love.  But we can feel it tugging on the strings of our hearts.  Complete forgiveness of sins and the gift of everlasting life where there are no tears, mourning or sorrow, tug pretty hard at the heart.  Sharing that love in simple ways that show compassion and putting aside selfish pride and ambition tug pretty hard at other hearts too.  Giving so that others will know the perfect love given in Jesus tugs pretty hard at the heart too. Imagine if that kite would tug both the passerby and the little boy to eternity with our Lord and Savior.  That is what the new command does, gives each other Christ.

 

            Amen.