The One Thing that is So Hard to Do [Easter 6B - John 15:9-17]

 The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

John 15:9-17

 

The One Thing that is So Hard to Do

 

Hours before he died, Jesus sat down for dinner with his disciples.  And that night, in the shadow of the terrible cross, he said to them, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  It was such a simple statement, but also an impossibly huge ask.  Because, as I am sure you know, Jesus loved them very much.

 

The Gospel passage today is a portion of what Biblical scholars call Jesus’ farewell discourse.  Like the strained whispers from a death bed, these are the last words Jesus says to his disciples, to the disciples who will carry on in his absence, to the disciples who will stumble through the rest of their lives possessed by his restless Spirit. 

 

Perhaps you have imagined the questions you will ask God when you get to Heaven, well this is the disciples getting that chance on earth.  There he sat, at their table: the wisdom of the ages with calloused hands and unkept eyebrows.  He had been kicking around since before the beginning of things; he had seen it all.  And now impending death created this sense of urgency.  This was the last chance he would have to tell them the secrets of the universe, to share with them everything they needed to know.  Interestingly, however, he doesn’t say much.  What he does is he tells them to love.  It is as if God walked the earth for a few decades and discovered that the answer to life is actually quite simple.   

 

And I guess maybe it is.  Maybe things are so simple that Jesus can boil existence on this planet down to just one rule, one commandment.  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” 

 

He could have said anything in that moment; Jesus could have said anything to the ones he loved and was about to leave.  He could have handed over a polished set of by-laws or a charter to guide the birth of the Church; he could had made sense of the doctrine of the Trinity or assured them with an Easter Sunday agenda.  But he didn’t.  He had one commandment and that one was sufficient. 

 

Unfortunately, for those in his audience, and for those of us still looking to Jesus for the answers, his simplicity could not possibly be more complicated.  Because that’s what love does: it complicates everything. 

 

Love is amazingly difficult to define; I think that is why we have poetry.  But love is also something we just know.  Like it doesn’t have to be explained because it is the very thing that keeps us alive, that causes our hearts to beat.  And some days it feels so natural, so easy to love.  It’s just there: in your lover’s trembling touch or in a child’s crooked smile, in bread broken or in a long embrace. 

 

And yet somehow love is also the hardest thing we are called to do.

 

Because Love will break your heart.  I promise it will.

 

It is Love that causes us to hold tightly to that which is passing away, to the people who bring us joy and meaning, knowing that the end of the story is always grief.  But we do it anyways. 

 

It is Love that makes us bite our tongues.

Because not everyone is easy to love – or even easy to be around. 

 

It is Love that causes us to take losses in this life. 

Because love tells us that our relationships are more valuable than our winning percentage.  And so we throw some fights and let some things go.

 

Love will ask you to give too much and care too much and feel too much.

Love will inconvenience you at every turn.  Love will wreck your plans and mess up your routines.   

Love will make you cling to your stupid hope and let down your guard and other foolish things that will make your terribly vulnerable.

 

Because of love you will cry embarrassing tears and walk around with a pit in your stomach and forgive people who absolutely do not deserve it.

 

Because of love you will see Jesus in places that will make you furious, like in the face of someone who has hurt you beyond words. 

 

And there will be days you will rage at love and at the Jesus who made love his one and only commandment. 

 

But also love will open your eyes to the beauty in this broken world – and you will never be able to un-see it.

And it will wipe the tears from your cheeks and give you the strength to shout your Alleluias at the grave.

And it will help you understand Jesus and his maddening mercy and why it absolutely makes sense that he stopped at one commandment. 

 

The thing about love is: it is difficult and complicated; it messes up our lives and exposes our guts to the elements.  But also it is the best thing we have.  Love is our good news.  It is the good news we carry so gently in our broken hearts, a precious gift in a savage world, a Gospel that is admittedly far too tender and yet somehow also far too demanding.

 

Hours before he laid down his life for his friends, hours before he forgave his enemies with his dying breath, Jesus said, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”  And that is the simplest thing we will spend the rest of our lives trying to do.