I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. John 13:34-35

As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” John 15:9-12

I used to read these verses and say to myself, “Yes, I got this! These are beautiful and necessary words.” Then I would go on with life without giving it a second thought. I imagined that knowing this commandment was the same as living it. It is because I lived a comfortable and sheltered life where everyone around me was just like me. I was never challenged. Reading these verses in the streets among the homeless youth has changed everything. Suddenly these words have taken a whole new perspective. They have become one of the tough and difficult sayings of Jesus.

If I told our youth that they must love that person who made a snide remark to them in the way Jesus loved them, it would create a gulf between them and me. They would shake their heads and say, “Stephen doesn’t understand our world.” If they don’t think that I understand their reality, then naturally I can’t say anything relevant to them. However, this is an important commandment. It contains the good news for the youth. Nevertheless, I do feel a little embarrassed repeating these words. I lack the kind of authority Jesus had. It is better to read these words with them. Let them see for themselves that these are really Jesus’ words. After all, He knows more than anyone else about the true nature of this world. He met many egocentric and ungrateful people in His life on earth. He heard many flattering words about Him that meant nothing. He wasn’t fooled by the enthusiasm of the multitude. He even said that they were untrustworthy. Furthermore, He was aware that his close friend was going to betray him unto a certain cruel death, yet He never faltered in His love for him. He saw through the hypocrisy of the religious leaders and their murderous hearts. Yes, Jesus was completely aware of the presence of evil in this world. Despite this, His final advice for living a joyful life in this world is to love another as He loved us. This is what He discovered in His life on earth. It’s His legacy to us.

Nietzsche, a notorious enemy of Christianity who also was once a student of theology, commented that there is only one true Christian in this world and He died two thousand years ago. He wasn’t mocking when he said this. He was being honest. He thought that it was virtually impossible to follow in Jesus’ footsteps. Only Jesus was able to be Jesus and the rest of us are pretty sad in comparison. Maybe we need to think about this first. Can we ever love anyone in the way Jesus loves us? If not, then it would be rather cruel of Jesus to set such a high standard that no one could attain. On top of that, He made it necessary for our joyous living in this world. We know that Jesus wouldn’t do such a thing. Therefore, there must be answer or at least several answers for living out this commandment. Ignorance is not one of them.

I have a dear friend from seminary who is a Lutheran pastor. He began his pastoral ministry as a prison chaplain. He ministered to people who perpetrated the most heinous crimes, the kind which would make it easy for us to despise them. My friend had to face these people every day. He was Jesus’ ambassador to these people. He was challenged to love the unlovable. Everyday my friend confronted people who were unrepentant of what they did. Every day he fought against hatred. He is a loving person by nature, even then it is hard not to have anger and hatred in our hearts when we meet people who don’t care about another human being. He served out his time as a chaplain. It is safe to say that there were no major breakthroughs. None of the incarcerated become a saint as a result of my friend’s ministry. Nothing spectacular happened except for one simple miracle. My friend came home each day free from hatred. It constantly taunted him but was not able to consume him. He was able to see these men as human beings despite their monstrous crimes. He was able to see the image of God in them even though it has been clouded by their sin. He hoped that in the brief moments he spent with each one of them, they knew that he saw them as human beings and not as monsters. It was all he could do. It was enough. It helped him persevere in this dark place and not succumb to its darkness.

My friend would tell me that he did not intentionally try to fulfill this commandment when he ministered there. He tried his best to deal with these men. The truth is that in this extreme circumstances, we tend to understand the deep meaning of love. As Christians, we believe that the presence of Jesus in this world was to show us how to become truly human beings reflecting the image of God. All of us wear a distorted image of God. Jesus was able to perceive our true nature: the way God sees us. The only way He could see us as who we are supposed to be is through Love. If we only see distorted and wicked humans around us, then we would end up in despair. However, if we are able to see people the way Jesus sees them, then we can see Hope even in the most hopeless situation. This commandment is really for us. It is for our joy.

Thankfully, most of us don’t have to deal with the kind of people that my friend confronted on a daily basis. Maybe some reading this minister in the prison system. These can appreciate what my friend experienced. Our homeless youth deal with murderers and corrupt and violent police apart from mean spirited people. The rest of us are fortunate to be in a comfortable space. There is nothing wrong about this. Being in a so-called safe place doesn’t mean that we are immune to the cycle of hatred being propagated in this world. When we turn on the T.V., we see news that demonizes and dehumanizes people who are different from us. There is nothing being reported to help us see God’s image in the people. To the contrary, these reports serve to promote hatred. We need to stop the influx of hatred in our lives. A good start is to stop allowing hatred to invade any space in our lives. The commandment of Jesus is hard enough without all the negative input. We don’t need to hear about the nasty things humans do to each other hundred of miles away or even in our own neighborhood to make it more difficult.

This commandment is about us living our lives in this world. All we need to do is to step out of our homes and we meet people who have succumbed to hatred and bitterness. Sometimes they belong to our families. Other times we meet them by chance saying hurtful words. They might even be in our religious communities. Jesus did not ask us to change them. We don’t have that capability. He just does not want us to succumb to the hatred that is out there. This is not an easy commandment. It was never meant to be easy. We cannot honestly say that we can fulfill it. We can struggle with it each day in this world filled with hatred. It is a daily endeavor. The reward is at the end of each day as we can truly appreciate how much Jesus loves us because despite our frailty. He still believes that we can reflect God’s image in this world. This is our joy and strength to flourish in this world.