Love them anyway

John 13:31-35   5^th Sunday of Easter

 

    Richard Baxter said this about patience, “  Another necessary (part) of our (lives) is patience.   We must bear with many abuses and injustices from those we are doing good for.  When we have studied for them, and prayed for them, and beseeched and exhorted them with all condescension , and spent ourselves for them, and given them what we are able, and cared for them as if they had been our children, we must look that many should requite us with scorn, and hatred, and contempt, and cast our kindness in our faces with disdain, and take us for their enemies because we tell them the truth ; and that the more we love, the less we shall be beloved.

 

    All this must be patiently undergone, and still we must unweariedly hold on in doing good….If they unthankfully scorn and reject our teaching, and bid us look to ourselves and care not for them, yet we must hold on:  we have to deal with distracted men, that will fly in the face of their physician, but we must not therefore forsake the cure.”

 

Matthew Henry calls John 13:34-35 a renewed commandment.  “ A new commandment I give unto you. That ye love one another…”  The scene was the Passover supper that Jesus had with his disciples.  Before the supper an argument had started among them which of them was the greatest ( Luke 22:24).

 

Jesus included footwashing which was not part of the Jewish ritual of the Passover.   He rose from the supper and laid aside his upper robes, took the slaves’ towel and tied the towel on him .  Then He poured water into the basin, and began to wash the disciples’ feet.  He wiped them with the towel. “ You ought also to wash one another’s feet.” 13:14  He washed the feet of Judas as well. 

 

We are told ,”love one another.”  That would be easy if it were not so difficult at times.  For we can think of a million reasons why there are certain ones who we wish to not love at all.  And we can see their faces and have their names before us.  They may have treated us cruelly or with contempt, ignoring us, and making us feel as though we did not matter.  There are people we do not wish to love.

 

But Jesus says, “ you love one another, as I have loved you.”  How has He loved us?   Can we remember times when we did not deserve His love?  We grew tired of the rituals of the Christian faith and the commandments, and found many reasons to not keep His commandments.  Somehow we were found again by God, and we knew that even when we were far astray He did not stop loving us.  How many of us have been in churches where they were anything but a hospital for sinners.  No, they were the first place where the wounded were shot.  Yet these are the people who need the love of Christ .

 

It is important that we have love for one another because Jesus says, “ By this will all know that you are my disciples.”  It is a message we choose to ignore . 

 

Christian love does not involve loving the world system---I John 2:15 “ for all that is in the world---the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away..”  We are told in John 15:10 to keep His commandments , and we will abide in the Father’s love.  2 Timothy 2:24 reminds us that “ a servant of the Lord must not quarrel but be gentle to all, able to teach, patient, in humility correcting those who are in opposition, if God perhaps will grant them repentance, so that they know the truth and that they come to their senses and escape the snare of the devil, having been taken captive by him to do his will.”

 

I Corinthians 13 reminds us that love is patient and does not ever give up.  We cannot do this by ourselves.  WE must do this in the power of the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit.  He will give us the strength to do the things we could not do.  It is one of the hardest things in the Christian life.  We need to love God, ourselves and our neighbors. 

 

We should be reminded of this duty to love one another in the words of Mother Teresa taken by Martina McBride and put into a modified form into a country song:”

 

People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered

Love them anyway.

 

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motivies.

Be kind anyway.

 

If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.

Do good anyway.

 

Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable.

Be honest and frank anyway.

 

What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.

Build anyway.

 

People may need help, but may attack you if you try and help them.

Help them anyway.

 

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.

It was never between you and them anyway.”