The Measure of Love

Exodus 33:18-23; 34:5-7               Romans 5:6-11                 John 13:31-38

The Measure of Love

A little boy once wanted to tell his daddy that he loved him, but his daddy just happened to be reading a rather serious book at the time and didn’t want to be disturbed. Frustrated with the impatient grunts and snorts from his otherwise unresponsive father, the little boy jumped onto his father’s lap, threw his arms around his neck, and exclaimed: “Daddy, I love you and I’ve just got to do something about it!” 

Jesus shows us clearly in our Gospel passage for today that love must be expressed if it is to be understood as such, whether it is reciprocated or not. Now, I think it may be helpful at this point to remember, just momentarily, the agony our Lord experienced with the exposure and removal of Judas as well as the selfish indifference of the other disciples – even though Jesus had chosen Judas with the full knowledge of what he would eventually do, he was deeply troubled by his disciple’s refusal to repent. The loss of any soul is indeed an awful thing which should never be taken lightly.

However, it was after Judas had totally surrendered himself to Satan and had abandoned the group – turning his back on three years of close friendship – that Jesus explained the true meaning and measure of love to his remaining disciples. And he began with a powerful demonstration of what love really looks like.

From verse 31 through verse 32, Jesus used the verb “to glorify” five times each time referencing what he was about to do on the cross. Now, one might have expected him to use a different verb when referring to the cross…perhaps the verb “to humiliate” rather than “to glorify” as the cross was his ultimate humble act of obedient submission to the will of the Father. But he didn’t use that verb, did he? 

Was Jesus humiliated at the cross? You bet he was. The Holy Son of God was falsely accused, falsely sentenced to death as a criminal, mercilessly flogged, and paraded through the streets carrying the very instrument by which he would be executed…he was publicly stripped naked and nailed to a cross in full view of everyone. But the worst thing of all was that, as Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of God”. (NIV) That was the ultimate humiliation…at least from our perspective.

But here Jesus said that, in what we see as humiliation, he was, in fact, glorified and that God the Father was glorified. What did he mean by this? How was he and how was the Father glorified in the cross? 

Well, in Scripture, the revelation of God’s glory is often linked to the revelation of his character.  In Exodus 33:18, Moses asked to see God’s glory…and God agreed to his request, but in Exodus 34:6-7 we are told how his glory was shown. The Lord passed before Moses and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and fourth generation.”

So, how did God reveal his glory to Moses? Well, by revealing his character.

So, if the revelation of God’s glory means the revelation of God’s character, what does it mean that Jesus was glorified on the cross and that God the Father was glorified in him? How was God’s character revealed to us on the cross? 

In Romans 5:8 Paul tells us that God revealed or showed or demonstrated his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Jesus died for us on the cross. God demonstrated his love on the cross. 1 John 4:8 tells us that God is love. That is his character. And through the substitutionary death of Jesus, his love finds its ultimate expression. As Jesus said in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” (ESV)

So in these two verses, Jesus set the parameters of his love, a love that supremely reveals itself through self-sacrifice for the ultimate good of others…by giving everything there is to give.

But the cross is not just the ultimate evidence of God’s love…no, indeed the cross reveals all his attributes.  Do you want to see God’s holiness, his righteousness, his justice, his mercy, his goodness, his kindness, his graciousness, holiness, and his sovereignty? Look to the cross. 

However, the cross also reveals to us the goal of his love. The goal of Jesus’ death on the cross was to set us free from slavery to sin so that we might be slaves to righteousness. Through Jesus’ death on the cross, we have been set free from all that hindered us from loving as he loves and from living as he lives. At the cross, the penalty for sin was fully manifested and its payment was fully displayed. At the cross, sin was blotted out. Satan was defeated. All was restored to order, and all was renewed. The record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands was cancelled. Principalities and powers were exposed and overcome. (Romans 6:19-23; Colossians 2:14-15)

But with this emancipation comes responsibility. Just as God required the freed Israelite slaves to obey him, so too God requires us to live according to who we are in him. You see, even though Jesus would soon be physically removed from the view of the world at the Ascension, he would continue to manifest his character and exercise his power through his followers. 

So, here he said to his disciples: “A new commandment, I give to you, that you love one another.” Now you might be wondering how this commandment was new because in Leviticus 19:18 God commanded the Israelites to love their neighbours as themselves. So how was this commandment to love new? 

Well, I purposefully left off the last bit of Jesus’ words. “Just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” The measure is no longer “love your neighbour as you love yourself”, but more specifically “love one another as I have loved you.” To love as Christ loved is to love even your enemies…to do good to those who hate you and abuse you and spitefully use you. 

This new commandment takes the old commandment up quite a few notches because Jesus’ love for his own was demonstrated through his self-sacrificial life and death. His love for his enemies was demonstrated through his amazing forbearance and infinite patience. 

Similarly, our love must be expressed through sacrificial service if it is to be like Jesus’ love. In so many ways, Jesus has given us an example to emulate. We are to love as he loves. If we do so, it will be obvious whom we follow. If we love as Jesus loves, all will be able to identify us as his disciples because they observe in us the same kind of love that was revealed through Jesus on the cross. As such we, as the followers of Jesus, are defined by the law of love and consequently by the character of our God.

As Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 13, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” (ESV) 

Sadly, all too often, we followers of Jesus miss the commandment to love as Jesus loved because we are preoccupied with other matters. This is exactly what happened with Peter here. It is as if Peter got stuck at “Where I am going you cannot come.” It is as if he did not hear the new commandment to love at all. So, he asked, “Lord, where are you going?” Amazingly, Jesus did not rebuke him but rather met him where he was at. Jesus answered his question, repeating his earlier statement with a little comforting expansion. “Where I am going, you cannot follow me now, but you will follow me afterwards.” 

Now this statement has often been thought to be referring to Peter’s martyrdom, but I am not convinced. In John 14:2-3 Jesus said, “In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.” 

Now, either Jesus entered the building trade post ascension, or this promise to prepare a place for us was fulfilled at the cross. We must ask ourselves: where did Jesus prepare a place for us in his Father’s house? Well, I believe he did that at the cross. And his coming again to take them to himself, I believe, happened at the resurrection. So, this promise is not a future pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die-by-and-by…no, this is a present reality for those who are in Jesus. 

Just as Paul says in Ephesians 2:4-7, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ – by grace you have been saved – and (now listen carefully) raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (in other words, he has come back from where he prepared a place for us to take us to be with him) so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus.” 

My understanding, if you put these two statements of Jesus and Paul side by side, is that what Jesus meant here was that he would shortly be going to the cross to die for his own…no one could follow him there. But after he had prepared a place for us by overcoming sin, Satan, and death on the cross, he returned from the dead, taking us to be with him in heavenly places. No one could follow Jesus to the cross – only he could do that – but because of his triumph on and through the cross, we can follow him now and be with him now.

But because Peter and the other disciples were still locked in their own understanding of what the Messiah ought to be and do, Jesus’ leaving to them was disastrous. To Peter, it must have seemed as if Jesus was going to go into hiding again…that he was going to retreat…a retreat which was, in his opinion, not necessary…after all, he was willing to take up arms for the cause and to die if need be. 

But our Lord lovingly yet firmly revealed to Peter the true nature of his heart. Deep inside, Peter still did not understand. That understanding would come later, and Peter would, indeed, die for the cause. But for the moment, he was not ready to die for Jesus. 

Now, Peter’s arrogance – his presumption to know better than his Lord – is yet another opportunity for us to see Jesus’ love in action. Even though Jesus knew full well that Peter would deny him, not once but three times, he still loved him enough to die for him and to return to restore him. Jesus patiently put up with Peter’s false self-confidence without rejection and without ridicule. He lovingly yet firmly corrected him and continued to prepare him for the devastating moment of self-realization that was soon to come.

What Peter and the others would come to realise post-resurrection is that the cross was the apex of God’s revelation of his character and the manifestation of his glory. As I said before if you want to know anything about God…who he is…what he is like…look to the cross. That is where he expressed his love for the world…there his glory is seen in the demonstration of his self-sacrificial love. And this is the measure of love that ought to be reflected in those of us who call ourselves his disciples. The world will only know that we are followers of Jesus if they see and experience us loving like Jesus. 

To err they say, is human…to love, divine. Love does not come naturally to fallen broken people such as we are. Love comes through journeying closely with the one who is love and through a daily choice to love others, not only as we love ourselves, but to love them as Jesus loves us and gave himself up for us. 

Easy? No, he never said that. It wasn’t easy for him, and it will most certainly not be easy for you either. 

What Jesus said was by the measure that he loves you, so you are to love too. The cross reveals the depths of Jesus’ love for you…his love for you cost him everything. Is your love like his love?

Shall we pray?

© Johannes W H van der Bijl 2024