The New Commandment: Self-Giving Love

Jürgen Klopp: “The most difficult opponent in football is football itself.”

Jürgen Klopp, a top coach, said soccer’s rules make the game a worthy challenge. Playing soccer by basketball rules might seem easier, but it wouldn’t be soccer. Jesus gave the commandment we read today at the Last Supper, just hours before his arrest. Of all the final words he could have chosen, he chose love. As Bishop Michael Curry noted, this “was not long before Jesus’ death, when he would show what love looks like; giving of the self, even sacrificing the self for the good and well-being of others.” *

• Jesus said, “Just as I have loved you, so you also must love each other.” Like the moon reflecting the sun’s light, our love for others needs to reflect how God loves us. Jesus lived and taught a tough, self-giving love—the Greek word agape, grounded in God’s character, not ours. In what practical ways do you live out your commitment to love God and others? Can you embrace self-giving—rather than self-gratification—as key to the love that makes life truly worth living?
• Jesus’ teaching shaped John Wesley, Methodism’s founder, who asked: “Though we cannot think alike, may we not love alike? May we not be of one heart, though we are not of one opinion? Without doubt, we may.” ** This kind of love is costly—as scholar Leon Morris noted, God “doesn’t regard sinners with aversion’ but with “the costly love we see in the cross where Jesus died to save them.” *** Who might you be called to “love alike,” even if you can’t “think alike”? What would it look like to offer Jesus’ costly love to someone you disagree with deeply?