Fifth Sunday of Easter Year C
Acts 14:21-27
Psalm 145:8-9, 10-11, 12-14
Revelation 21:1-5
John 13:31-33a, 34-35
The clearest evidence for the truth of the Gospel is witness. An individual can speak truth, but the witness of that person’s life makes the truth knowable in a practical way. However, when we hear the new commandment, we are forced to acknowledge that the witness of one individual is not enough to make the Gospel known.
Jesus says, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Mutual love is the central challenge of the Gospel. One person loving another is good, but unless that love is returned, it does not yet represent a fulfillment of the commandment. The first generation of Christians was noted by those who saw them as a community of mutual love. “See these Christians, how they love one another!” was the witness that served to convert the Roman Empire.
Certain steps must be taken for love to become mutual. We must love with the love of Jesus, that is, with a sacrificial love. When Jesus says, “As I have loved you, so you also should love one another,” He sets up as a standard for love that one must be willing to die for the other.
“I am willing to die for you.” If someone says that, and it is returned in kind, “I am willing to die for you,” then a new depth of relationship is possible. Jesus loved God, and so there is a real communion of love, a sharing in the very life of the Triune God.
This is not a mere ideal, but it is the ideal of ideals. At the same time, it is something that can be lived concretely. It is visible.
Theology tells us that Jesus is the Sacrament of the Father: He reveals God to us. The Church is the Sacrament of Christ. We, who are the Body of Christ, the Church, make Jesus Christ present by our shared life in response to the command of love.
The first Apostles see the pathway to this new life in the hardships that are experienced. They also discover that when sufferings are accepted as part of the price of love, they enable us to reach the goal for which we are aiming. “It is necessary for us to undergo many hardships to enter the kingdom of God.”
At the close of the Book of Revelation, John sees a new heaven and a new earth, the New Jerusalem, that is the people of God. “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race. He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will always be with them as their God.” This unity of life in God and with God is something to be shared with all who are open to receive it.
The sufferings of the Church and of people throughout the world can be “gathered” into the life of Christ by how we choose to respond to them. When we are willing to love one another, dying to ourselves and uniting ourselves with those who suffer, we discover many new aspects of our capacity to love.
We hear the promise that when the journey is completed, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death or mourning, wailing or pain, for the old order has passed away. The One who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new.’”
The gift of life that Christ shares with us is not just about the future. We are promised eternal life, and Jesus and His Apostles “make new” every aspect of life in this world. All things are made new.
Keeping our eyes fixed on what God has promised through Christ, we proclaim the truth of the Gospel by our willingness to undergo hardships and by our commitment to fulfill the command of love. May we witness together to the world in such need of this truth that all things are made new by our love for one another.
