By: Dave Sims

A new command I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13. 34 NIV

Jesus gave his disciples this new command during the Last Supper. Reading it makes me curious as to how they might have understood it. Their minds might have been drawn to the Shema, “Love the Lord your God…and your neighbor as yourself” (Deut. 6:4-5). They might have also remembered Jesus’s words from the Sermon on the Mount, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matt 5.43-44). Regardless of how the disciples understood the new command, we know how Jesus demonstrated it. The following day by he laid down his life for his enemies.

The disciples likely did not connect the dots from Jesus’s new command to the crucifixion. After the resurrection, knowing how confused and disoriented they were, he spent 40 days teaching them the Old Testament prophecies concerning his suffering, death and resurrection. Even though this time with Jesus enabled them to understand that his death was part of God’s plan, they were still expecting him to assume his throne in Jerusalem.

Therefore, they asked Jesus, “…when are you going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6) Not knowing that the crucifixion was Jesus’s inauguration as King, Jesus answered them by saying, “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority.” (v.7). Knowing that he was not going to assume a political reign at this time and that he was going to rule a different way, he said, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (v. 8). Then he ascended back to his Father.

As Jesus rose into the sky with numerous questions swirling through the disciples’ minds, it’s likely that the only thing that gave them any reassurance was the fact that Jesus spoke with such confidence about the coming Holy Spirit. So the disciples did as he told them. They waited, but not entirely sure for what.

They found out a few days later. The Spirit descended and the disciples’ experience was life-changing (Acts. 2). We see this life-change expressed immediately with Peter and John healing a lame man in the Temple. The man asked for alms but they told him that silver or gold were not in their possession, but Jesus’s authority was and, in his name, they told the lame man to rise up and walk. And he did get up and walk.

A big crowd gathered as a result, and Peter extemporaneously preached his first sermon boldly proclaiming Jesus as the resurrected Messiah and accusing the crowd of complicity in Jesus’s execution. The disciples had taken up the ambassadorial call Jesus had predicted (Acts 1:8). They saw that Jesus’s kingdom was invisible, yet real. They exhibited its power and presence, and they began inviting others to join them as its citizens.

The disciples could see God’s plan being unveiled through them. Jesus was establishing his kingdom, but In a way they had not anticipated—through the Apostles and the church that was birthed by the Spirit that day. No one could have predicted this plan, not even the angels. God’s glory was now contained in humans and he would advance his kingdom through them. Instead of placing Jesus on an earthly throne to coerce humans to bow to his will, God had placed him in the bodies of his people, the church, to love their enemies, extend them benevolence, offer them a place in God’s family, and exhibit divine wisdom as they lived out companionship with his Spirit.

The disciples gave witness to this incredible story everywhere they went. God was rescuing humans (even Gentiles) from the penalty of sin and their sinful selves, while restoring them to his promised Shalom (flourishing, wholeness and delight) by forgiving their sins and placing his presence within them. The rescue had taken place as a result of a vulnerable act of self-sacrificial love in which our all-powerful God allowed himself to be killed on a cross. The cross eventually became the symbol of the disciples’ faith, a faith best characterized by imitating Jesus in laying down their lives for others.

Jesus’s command to love “as I have loved you” would become the means by which his followers would demonstrate their love for him and advance his kingdom. They gladly lived out this new command, seeing their lives as an extension of Jesus’s life and, as they laid down their lives, a fruitfulness resulted that would bless God, those around them and even themselves.

What a story! What a God!