I tell you: where I am going you cannot come. I give you a new commandment: Love one another! Just as I have loved
you, you also must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Reflection:
What is so new about the “new commandment?” In essence,
it does not seem different from the “old.” Deut. 6:4 spoke of loving God
with one’s entire being and Lev 19:18 spoke of loving one’s neighbor as
oneself; and Jesus reaffirmed them as the “great commandment”
(cf. Mt. 22:37-40). Yet, the “new commandment” is definitely new
in terms of its model, scope, and semiotic value: We shall do this
loving as Jesus has done – “Just as I have loved you, you must….” If, in
the Leviticus the “neighbor” applied tribalistically to members of one’s
own group, here Jesus leaves it open-ended, to include even our
enemies (cf. Mt. 5:44; Lk 10: 25-37). Finally, love of such scope modelled
after Jesus shall be the sign by which the world would know a Christian.
© Copyright Bible Diary 2022