Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

In today’s gospel reading we hear the new commandment pronounced by Jesus.

I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.” (John 13:34)

There is something confusing about the new commandment, especially for Lutherans. We spend most of time admonishing the whole Christian church on earth that salvation comes to us as a gift from God. We speak constantly of grace, the unmerited favor of God bestowed upon the world which God loves.

How is it that we can continue to proclaim the new commandment? We are convinced that we are captive to sin and unable to love without the aid of the Holy Spirit Is the commandment to love one another really all that easy?

Need I point out how difficult it is in our own families to love one another? That is no easy task. Even flesh and blood do not make easier the task to love those who belong to our group. Kathy and I laughed uncomfortably when asked if she had ever considered divorce. Kathy replied, “Never.” I was relieved until she blurted out, “Murder–sometimes!”

No, it is no easy assignment to love one another. And we do not make it easier on ourselves when we turn Jesus’ commandment into a requirement that we must fulfill on our own before God will rescue us from the human condition.

The new commandment is offered by Jesus not as a pre-condition that we must satisfy. No, the new commandment is offered on the basis of the new creation which Jesus presents in his preaching. All of our readings today bear witness to the new thing that God is doing in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

First, the story of Peter going to Caesarea to eat with Gentiles and to proclaim to them the resurrection of Christ. The resurrection proclamation announces that God is doing something entirely new. That means for Peter that all the rules he had followed were no longer in effect. No more kosher meals and no more shunning Gentiles. For the Gentiles were also the object of the great act of redemption in Jesus the Lord. Peter was among the first witnesses to the resurrection, but that did not mean that he understood the implications of such a great event. When the Gentiles in Joppa heard the proclamation and were transformed by their hearing, Peter is convinced that God is far out ahead of everyone, including the church.

Second, the psalm praises the Creator God who calls Israel to bear witness to God’s faithfulness to his creation. God is not portrayed as isolated in heaven. The heavenly deity is praised for being near.

The splendor of the LORD is over earth and heaven. (Ps. 148:13).

Third, in the Gospel of John, Jesus is the one sent by God to reveal the fullness of God’s involvement in the creation. Jesus, the Word made flesh, speaks to his disciples. Like the suffering Israel, the church is called to proclaim the deep involvement of God in the world.

In fact, it is in the depth of human suffering that Jesus instructs his disciples to find the glory of God. The glory of God is found in the cross–not just any cross, but the cross of Jesus. Myriads of people died savagely on the Roman crosses. But only one died while proclaiming a vision of God working deeply in human flesh to renew the world.

Finally, we see the denouement of the divine drama in the vision of St. John the Divine.

“See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his peoples,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.”
(Revelation 21:3-4)

The voice invites us to trust in the heavenly vision. The crucified/risen Christ has made the vision possible. For the voice from the throne declares, "See, I am making all things new." Also he said, "Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true." (Revelation 21:6)

Can you participate in this vision? Yes, because it is there. It is here in the proclamation of the church. It is the proclamation that renews us and creates the conditions under which we are free to love. Filled with hope, we may respond freely to the command to love one another.

It is by our love for one another that the church fulfills her mission to bear witness to the mystery of God’s presence in our ostensibly God-forsaken world. Suffering can no longer serve as a boundary that God cannot cross. God has crossed the boundary and has suffered with us in order to release the Word of faith that directs us not away from suffering, but to find God in suffering. And we are directed toward those who suffer. We can recognize finally that in our own suffering we are not God-forsaken. We are embraced.

God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more. (Revelation 21:4a)

Dear brothers and sisters, there are those who believe that the new commandment, to love one another, is actually an easier assignment than the greatest commandment, to love God and to love our neighbor. But those who think this way must have never been involved members of a congregation! The greatness of every congregation is measured not in its uniformity or harmony. The strength of a Christian community is not in its lack of alternative opinions.

The strength of a congregation lies in our obedience to the new commandment to love one another recognizing that God loves us all. I have watched over these last sixteen years as we have disagreed on many issues. Occasionally there have been those who have announced that if you don’t do what I want, I am leaving. Of course, such threats only reveal a lack of trust in the God who always is doing something new.

The greatness of this congregation lies in occasional humility that allows us to say clearly what we want as we understand God’s will to be. We can express clearly what we want without threat. We trust in the God at work in our faithful proclamation of the life, death and resurrection of God’s son. We cannot claim to be absolutely right because we do not know future events. We can only trust that our decisions made faithfully in God’s love will bear fruit because we know the ending.

That ending began with God’s love and it will end with God’s love.

Amen.