Upward & Outward Love
If you have had the privilege to love and be loved, you know this difficult truth: love is hard. Why? Because, to quote C.S. Lewis:
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
Lest we be in danger of losing the weight of Lewis’ lofty language, let me bring this down to street level with a story. In the year 2000, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, a married woman and mother of two young boys at the time, received a six-month fellowship to conduct research for her second and third novels in Hiroshima, Japan. While conducting her research, she came to the realization that she did not want to be a wife and mother anymore. When she returned back home to the U.S. she immediately divorced her husband and left her children. The product of her research in Japan was a book entitled, Hiroshima in the Morning; the book weaves together her interviews with the atomic bomb survivors and her own struggle for identity. In a subsequent interview, Rahna states the supposed reason why she left her husband and children, this is what she said: “I realized I lost myself a bit and I wanted to give myself more priority.”
But that really wasn’t the driving force behind Rahna’s action. That’s was the fruit, but not the root. The real reason why she left her family became clear later in the interview when she stated that being a mother had made her do “that thing that I didn’t want to do, which was give up my life for someone else.” I think our knee-jerk reaction to this is to call Rahna a terrible person; I mean, what she did was not virtuous in any way, but if we let this story do its heart work, I believe what emerges is the truth that, while we may not go as far as Rahna did, our natural disposition towards love is, to paraphrase John Piper, self-satisfaction over self-forgetfulness. Which is why our love must be firmly established upward for it to properly work outward.
Today, love has become a catch-all word for nothing in particular. Biblically, however, love is an action, a commitment. Love is a choice to do what’s best for someone else. All forms of biblical love have that foundation. It is others-focused. It pursues another person’s well-being. It is a compassionate and righteous pursuit of the betterment of someone other than yourself. This is why our text is so instructive in bringing about a correct view of love—a love that begins upward and then works outward.
Jesus says in John 13:33-35, "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
While our text could stand alone as powerful and instructive, we can’t forget it is being said in light of Jesus’ action. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus gets up from the dinner table, grabs a towel and water basin, and washes his disciples feet. Peter, who I believe represents the group here, is confused by this because no Jew, let alone a rabbi, should be washing feet; that was the task for a gentile slave. So, the confusion clouds their understanding. Jesus act of foot washing wasn’t isolated, as if it had no bearing on anything else, nor was it simply an act of humble service. The foot washing pointed to the ultimate washing that would take place on the cross. It not only spoke to who Jesus was, but also to what Jesus would do. And the driving force behind all of it was love.
Consider how John 13 begins, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Now listen once more to our text, John 13:33-35, "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
What John is doing here is pretty remarkable; he beautifully bookends the chapter with love. Jesus’ act of foot cleansing pointed to the spiritual cleansing the disciples, and all of us for that matter, needed. We were stained by sin, but we needed something more than mere water, we needed the cleansing blood of Jesus. By bookending the chapter with love, John is grounding Jesus’ action in love. There was nothing we could do about our condition; we deserved nothing but God’s wrath and displeasure, but in love Jesus took God’s wrath and displeasure, and absorbed and exhausted it for us and our salvation. This tells two remarkable things, to say the least.
First, it tells us that God, by sending Jesus to the cross on our behalf can end evil without ending us. Second, it tells us that we don’t have to search for cleansing anywhere else; nothing will ever deal with our desire to be cleansed from all the guilt and shame we carry around like the shed blood of Jesus. In Christ, the search is officially and decisively over.
That is gospel love, and it has huge implications for our discipleship. In our text, Jesus ties our discipleship to the action of love. Love for others is the external manifestation of the inward heart disposition towards others. If love for others, if the compassionate and righteous pursuit of another’s well-being is in your heart, that is precisely what will show in your actions. Loving people is hard. For this reason, even love can slip into legalism if not is not rooted in Jesus’ love for us. That is why love must rooted upward for it to properly work outward. I have two things by way of application, the first is directed toward disciples and the other towards those on the outside looking in.
If you’re a disciple I want you to remember that there is no such thing as only child in God’s family. The new command Jesus gave us in John 13 was to love one another, and he grounds that command in the love he has shown us. Those on the outside are looking in, and, according to our text, the distinguishing mark of disciples is their love for one another. So, remember, Jesus didn’t pass out trophies or titles, he passed out towels. Let that inform and guide our love for others.
For those who may not be sure they are on the discipleship path, l want you to know that God has done everything necessary to grip you with what will free you and bring you joy, and the proof is in the sending of his Son to pay the penalty for your sins. So, if you’re unsure about all this Jesus stuff, don’t stop searching until you know what this means: the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses and saves you from all sin.
To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.
Lest we be in danger of losing the weight of Lewis’ lofty language, let me bring this down to street level with a story. In the year 2000, Rahna Reiko Rizzuto, a married woman and mother of two young boys at the time, received a six-month fellowship to conduct research for her second and third novels in Hiroshima, Japan. While conducting her research, she came to the realization that she did not want to be a wife and mother anymore. When she returned back home to the U.S. she immediately divorced her husband and left her children. The product of her research in Japan was a book entitled, Hiroshima in the Morning; the book weaves together her interviews with the atomic bomb survivors and her own struggle for identity. In a subsequent interview, Rahna states the supposed reason why she left her husband and children, this is what she said: “I realized I lost myself a bit and I wanted to give myself more priority.”
But that really wasn’t the driving force behind Rahna’s action. That’s was the fruit, but not the root. The real reason why she left her family became clear later in the interview when she stated that being a mother had made her do “that thing that I didn’t want to do, which was give up my life for someone else.” I think our knee-jerk reaction to this is to call Rahna a terrible person; I mean, what she did was not virtuous in any way, but if we let this story do its heart work, I believe what emerges is the truth that, while we may not go as far as Rahna did, our natural disposition towards love is, to paraphrase John Piper, self-satisfaction over self-forgetfulness. Which is why our love must be firmly established upward for it to properly work outward.
Today, love has become a catch-all word for nothing in particular. Biblically, however, love is an action, a commitment. Love is a choice to do what’s best for someone else. All forms of biblical love have that foundation. It is others-focused. It pursues another person’s well-being. It is a compassionate and righteous pursuit of the betterment of someone other than yourself. This is why our text is so instructive in bringing about a correct view of love—a love that begins upward and then works outward.
Jesus says in John 13:33-35, "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
While our text could stand alone as powerful and instructive, we can’t forget it is being said in light of Jesus’ action. Earlier in the chapter, Jesus gets up from the dinner table, grabs a towel and water basin, and washes his disciples feet. Peter, who I believe represents the group here, is confused by this because no Jew, let alone a rabbi, should be washing feet; that was the task for a gentile slave. So, the confusion clouds their understanding. Jesus act of foot washing wasn’t isolated, as if it had no bearing on anything else, nor was it simply an act of humble service. The foot washing pointed to the ultimate washing that would take place on the cross. It not only spoke to who Jesus was, but also to what Jesus would do. And the driving force behind all of it was love.
Consider how John 13 begins, “Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” Now listen once more to our text, John 13:33-35, "Little children, yet a little while I am with you. You will seek me, and just as I said to the Jews, so now I also say to you, ‘Where I am going you cannot come.’ A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."
What John is doing here is pretty remarkable; he beautifully bookends the chapter with love. Jesus’ act of foot cleansing pointed to the spiritual cleansing the disciples, and all of us for that matter, needed. We were stained by sin, but we needed something more than mere water, we needed the cleansing blood of Jesus. By bookending the chapter with love, John is grounding Jesus’ action in love. There was nothing we could do about our condition; we deserved nothing but God’s wrath and displeasure, but in love Jesus took God’s wrath and displeasure, and absorbed and exhausted it for us and our salvation. This tells two remarkable things, to say the least.
First, it tells us that God, by sending Jesus to the cross on our behalf can end evil without ending us. Second, it tells us that we don’t have to search for cleansing anywhere else; nothing will ever deal with our desire to be cleansed from all the guilt and shame we carry around like the shed blood of Jesus. In Christ, the search is officially and decisively over.
That is gospel love, and it has huge implications for our discipleship. In our text, Jesus ties our discipleship to the action of love. Love for others is the external manifestation of the inward heart disposition towards others. If love for others, if the compassionate and righteous pursuit of another’s well-being is in your heart, that is precisely what will show in your actions. Loving people is hard. For this reason, even love can slip into legalism if not is not rooted in Jesus’ love for us. That is why love must rooted upward for it to properly work outward. I have two things by way of application, the first is directed toward disciples and the other towards those on the outside looking in.
If you’re a disciple I want you to remember that there is no such thing as only child in God’s family. The new command Jesus gave us in John 13 was to love one another, and he grounds that command in the love he has shown us. Those on the outside are looking in, and, according to our text, the distinguishing mark of disciples is their love for one another. So, remember, Jesus didn’t pass out trophies or titles, he passed out towels. Let that inform and guide our love for others.
For those who may not be sure they are on the discipleship path, l want you to know that God has done everything necessary to grip you with what will free you and bring you joy, and the proof is in the sending of his Son to pay the penalty for your sins. So, if you’re unsure about all this Jesus stuff, don’t stop searching until you know what this means: the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses and saves you from all sin.
Rev. Mike Hernandez serves as the senior pastor of Crossroads Presbyterian Church. He is a graduate of Trinity International University (B.A.), Knox Theological Seminary (M.Div.), and is currently pursuing a Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) at Reformed Theological Seminary Orlando.
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