What Happens In Between

Acts 11:1-18
Psalm 148
Revelation 21:1-6
John 13:31-35

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.

In the liturgical year, we are in the Easter Season, the time between the end of Holy Week and Pentecost. In our reading, the Lord is still with his apostles. By our calendar, the Ascension of the Lord is still about ten days away. So it seems a little odd that our reading comes from between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. In fact, by the liturgical calendar, it takes place on Maundy Thursday. Narrowing the time down even further, this is what is happening in between the Last Supper and Jesus’ arrest. This moment is between when Jesus prophesies Judas will betray him and when he will prophesy Peter will deny him.

This is a transitional moment in the life of the Lord and the apostles. Jesus has just told Judas “Do quickly what you are going to do.”[1] The apostles didn’t know what that meant, but Jesus did. He knows the apostles are expecting to celebrate the Passover with the man who has ridden triumphantly into Jerusalem on the back of a young donkey. The people went out to meet him waving palm branches and crying “Hosanna.” This is the greeting reserved for a king, not a carpenter and itinerant preacher. There was joy in this celebration, yes, Jesus had prophesied his own death, but at the moment this was lost on the apostles. Well, it was lost on all who had remained in the upper room.

In the verse preceding our reading the narrator tells us it was night. The sky and the time were dark. Jesus knew that this darkness would extend well beyond the dawn of the new day. At this moment, at this very moment, Jesus knows that his time with the apostles is limited. He knew that the dawn would be difficult for them, so he had to tell them what they needed to be able to survive the next few days without him. This is the end of the first part of Jesus’ ministry on earth and whatever he needs to say to them he has to say now.

So as we go on, we mustn’t lose the irony of their situation,[2] the apostles are basking in the glow of their Passover feast, yet one of them had just left with a cryptic command from their Messiah, so they are a little confused. It’s dark outside, there are a few oil lamps burning around the room. Jesus begins to give his final instructions in this darkness set against a backdrop of betrayal and denial. There is great light in the room, the person of Jesus Christ and the word he speaks, the word of truth and life burns like a fire in the night. All of this happening in the darkest night humanity has ever known; the night the shepherd would be betrayed by one of his sheep.

In our reading, Jesus has two words for the apostles. One deals with his glory and the glory of the Father. The other is a new commandment.

Jesus begins by saying “now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him.” Now, while it is dark, while Judas is on his way to betray Jesus and the prophecy of Peter’s denial is imminent, now while this tempest is brewing, the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him. In a wonderful motion, God the Father and God the Son lift one another in mutual glorification. They initiate this motion together, simultaneously. This motion has been made from the beginning and exists even now. It has always been this way and it will always be this way, even in this darkest of nights.

On this night, nothing has been left undone, nothing is incomplete.[3] When Jesus says “It is finished” from the cross in just a few hours, he will mean it. Now is the time when Jesus knows he will go to a place no one can follow. He knows his sojourn will be agonizing, but he knows that as his life brings glory to the Father, so too will his death. He knows glory abounds regardless of Judas’ betrayal or Peter’s denial. There is nothing anyone can say or do, there is nothing any group of people can say or do which will separate Jesus from the Father, and in this, glory abounds.

The next thing Jesus gives the apostles is a new commandment, that they love one another. They should love one another just as He loved them. So what does it mean for them to love one another as Jesus loved them?

First, we need to get something clear about this command. They are to love one another. This must come first. At this moment they aren’t being told to go out and evangelize the world. They aren’t being told they have to put more in the plate when it comes by. They aren’t even told to save the world. (It’s Jesus who takes care of that.) They are told to love, and they are told to love one another.

Their love for one another is what is going to get them through the next few days. They are going to feel great loss when Jesus is taken from them. They will feel like their world will never be the same without their Lord. This is when they will need love the most. This love is going to get Peter past his denial of Jesus. This love is going to get all of them past the ugly scene with Judas and the private guard of the chief priests and Pharisees. This love is going to get them past the crucifixion. This love is going to get them through from this dark moment until his glorious resurrection.

Now don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that some ordinary human love is a suitable replacement for the love of Jesus; on the contrary. Jesus told them to love one another as he loved them. They are to love one another sacrificially. They must be willing to give up everything for one another. This sort of love has only one source, this is the love of God, modeled for the apostles by Jesus the Christ. Their love will not sustain them through the dark night coming, but His love will.

This love must begin with them, with the community. This love must begin with the apostles and the disciples and all who know the love of Jesus. This love isn’t for the lost of the world outside the communion of the church; it is for the lost of the world inside the communion of the church. Often in the history of the church, there have been disagreements. I could regale you with the latest salvos in the fight for peace, unity, and purity in the Presbyterian Church (USA), but why should I when the first major fight for peace, unity, and purity is found in our reading from Acts?

Our reading in Acts shows Peter in a sticky situation. He has just returned from a glorious time with the Gentiles in Cornelius’s home at Caesarea. Peter had received a word from the Lord to go and take and eat with the Gentiles, so he did. The Gentiles heard the word of God, received the Holy Spirit, and were baptized. Peter shared their hospitality, but with their hospitality he shared their unclean food. Returning to Jerusalem, Peter’s breaking of the table purity with the Gentiles was controversial, even scandalous. Peter explained, step by step, that he was directed by the word of the Spirit. He was told to go, take, and eat. He was also told “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Peter explained to the church in Jerusalem that the Spirit told him not to make distinction between them and us, between the Jews and the Gentiles.

This is the root of the love we are to share with one another. This is the communion we are share with one another. We are one with the Spirit; we are one with the Lord.[4] This is the love of God, modeled by Jesus, which we are to share with one another. This is the new commandment the apostles received. This is the new commandment we receive still today. And it is through this love for one another that everyone will know that we are disciples of Jesus Christ.

John Lennon once said “Life is what happens while you are making other plans.”[5] Judas had his plans. He was on his way to execute them, and by them he would forge the first link of a chain that would bind Jesus to the cross. Peter had his own gung-ho plans. He was ready to take on the Jews and the world. He was ready to lay down his life for his Lord, but instead he will deny Jesus three times before cockcrow. There are great plans in the works. Conspiracies abound. Toil, torment, torture, suffering and death are on the horizon for Jesus (and Judas for that matter). Plans will come, plots will go, and in the meantime, life goes on.

We are in a great dark time, just like the apostles were some two thousand years ago. In the meantime, like sands through the hourglass, life happens while we make plans. Here’s a challenge, find some time this week and put aside your plans. Take time to look at life and God’s love around us. Take time to feel the sun on your face, or hear the rain on the roof. Let this be a time to put aside our plans, and seek the life happening around us. Let us be with those who are here with us today, and with those who are absent. Be a part of this communion, a communion begun by Jesus on a dark night long ago, a communion of people who are like we are and a communion of people who are not like us at all. And let us love one another as Christ loved us.

The events of our gospel reading happen during the Last Supper. We celebrate the inauguration of this sacrament on Maundy Thursday. Maundy means mandate, commandment.[6] Jesus has given his apostles a new commandment; he has given us a new commandment; to love one another; a love which reflects the glory of God and the glory of Jesus; the glory they give to one another. This is the glory that finds in us another pair of eyes when we take time to be attentive to the glorious life of the Lord surrounding us. This is the glory that finds in us another pair of hands when we take time to participate the glorious life of the Lord surrounding us.

In the liturgical year, we are in the Easter Season, the time between the end of Holy Week and Pentecost. It seems a little odd that our reading comes from between Palm Sunday and Good Friday. But the darkness of this time is not so different from our own. In this dark time, we are to seek the one light that shined brightly on that dark night, the love of Jesus for his apostles and for the world. There is light in the word of God, the word that calls us to see the mutual glory of the Father and the Son, the word that calls us to take this love so graciously given and share it with one another. A love by which all unity may one day be restored, a love by which we'll guard each one's dignity and save each one’s pride, a love which makes us one.[7]

[1] John 13:27b
[2] Cousar, Charles B., Gaventa, Beverly R., McCann, Jr., J. Clinton, Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV, YEAR C. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994, page 310.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Peter Scholtes, “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love,” 1966 F.E.L. Publications. Assigned 1991 Lorenz Publishing Company (a div. of the Lorenz Corporation)
[5] The Columbia World of Quotations. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. www.bartleby.com/66/. May 5, 2007. Columbia notes that others may have been responsible for this quotation.
[6] McKim, Donald. Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996, “Maundy” entry.
[7] Ibid. Peter Scholtes