5th Sunday of Easter

This Sunday’s Gospel speaks of the new commandment: “... that you love one another.” (Jn 13: 34) Jesus had already, earlier in his ministry, summarised the law in the great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Mtt 22: 36-39) What makes the commandment, bestowed in the context of the Last Supper and the washing of the feet, new? We need to keep reading: “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” (Jn 13: 34). To understand this love and its newness we need to look at Jesus ministry as a whole as well as absorbing the message of the feet washing. He lived with his disciples, listened to them, taught them and ultimately gave his life for them. The kind of love Jesus asks of them is a complete giving of oneself usually characterised by the Greek term of agape. The new commandment is therefore greater than the Great Commandment because with it the one loving places the beloved ahead of himself. Sometimes I have heard in pop songs the singer affirming a love because s/he knows that the beloved will do the same back. The new commandment asks for no guarantees nor does it speak of mutuality. It speaks of the Cross. A love that has its source in God and Him alone. What, I might ask, is the foundation of my love for others? Is it quid pro quo or mutual protection or self interest or a sense of duty? If it is one of these it fails to meet the standard of the the New Commandment.