So That the World Will Know

            Jesus’ final discussion with the twelve disciples at the “Last Supper” (Jn 13-17) is a rich and fascinating dialogue.  There is a strong emphasis on love in his words, including Jesus’ love for the Father, Jesus’ love for his disciples, his disciples’ love for Jesus and the Father, and his disciples’ love for one another. And throughout this discourse, Jesus speaks of love in terms of a test, or proof.
 

For example, after commanding the disciples to love one another even as he loved them, Jesus states that this love will be proof of our discipleship (13.34-35): A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”  Thus, love proves one to be a true follower of Jesus.
 

But then Jesus speaks of the proof our love, which is obedience:  “If you love Me, you will keep my commandments” (vs.15). “He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me” (14.21). “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word” (14.23).
 

Finally, Jesus speaks of the result of our love, which is to become perfected in unity:  “I in them and You in Me,” he prays (17.20-23). The connection of this unity with love is seen in vs.26, where Jesus speaks again of being “in” us, if the love of the Father is in us.  But unity is also connected to our obedience, for in order to be unified, we must also be “sanctified in truth” (vs.17) Unless we obey the truth, our love for one another will be pure sentimentalism. But without love, there is no obedience (just as without obedience there is no love).
 

Might we summarize this whole series of statements on love this way: (1) love testifies to the genuineness our discipleship; (2) obedience testifies to the genuineness of our love; and (3) unity testifies to the genuineness of both our obedience and love? It seems to me to be a fair summary, though perhaps not perfectly precise.
 

But what stands out to me throughout this speech is to whom our love, obedience, and unity testify. Of course, they testify to God, but that is not the emphasis Jesus makes here. In each of these three “proofs,” Jesus points the testimony elsewhere. Our love is proof to the world (“all men”--vs.35) of our discipleship. Obedience, as the proof of our love, likewise testifies to the world, as Jesus says of himself: “but so that the world may know that I love the Father, I do exactly as the Father commanded Me” (14.31). And finally, our unity in love and in the truth likewise is a testimony to the world: “…that they many be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me.” (17.23). Notice, however, that it is not our love that the world comes to know through all this. Rather, it is God’s love for the world. Our love for God and for one another testifies that God loved the world and sent his only begotten Son to die for the world. Is it any wonder, then, that Jesus believed love so important that he wanted it to be the focus of his final message? It was so that the world will know.
 

© 2006 Randy Hohf