As I Have Loved You – 5th Sunday of Easter – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; May 18, 2025

Love one another. After 2,000 years the “new commandment” is still pleasing but no longer seems new; rather it has often become familiar and trite. Yes, wouldn’t it just be wonderful if we could all love one another, all get along. Nevertheless, when it comes down to it, some people do not seem to be very lovable and some people do not seem to be very loving.

When it comes down to it, this business of loving one another can be difficult – even for those who pledged themselves to love each other for their whole life, like husbands and wives – and so we might be inclined to narrow the scope of love to make it more “realistic”. Then we run into Jesus’ words, If you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even tax collectors do the same? (Mt 5:46)

Jesus “new commandment”, though, is actually a bit more than just love one another. Fully it is, As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. As I have loved you is key. He gives the example and he gives the power, the Holy Spirit of Love; that is what makes the commandment always new.

We are not the original source of love and we cannot fulfill the commandment without first receiving the love of God in Jesus Christ. We cannot fulfill the commandment unless we have truly come to know the love of God. We need to consider, turn over in our mind, and let penetrate our heart, the greatness of God’s love for us, for each one of us. He has created us, he redeems us in Christ, he sanctifies us with the gift of the Holy Spirit, and would lead us to eternal salvation.

Every one present here today woke up this morning. That is not something we can take for granted. Without thinking about it we breath and our heart beats. We do not make this happen. These are profoundly simple facts. We are alive and we did not give ourselves life; further our life is at every moment sustained by God. Without him we simply would not exist at all.

It is good to be alive and generally we are happy to be alive – even when we are otherwise feeling miserable – and it is good to be alive as human beings, able to think, to know, to choose, to love. None of this comes from ourselves. All this is a pure gift from God.

Next, we can think of how, during the course of our lives, we have given little thought to God, shown him little gratitude, and made poor use of the gift he has given us. We can think of our personal lack of gratitude and we can think of the family and nation to which we belong, we can think of the whole human race to which we belong, throughout history.

Injustice, corruption, and falsehood are so widespread that even though we might be personally upright, we can scarcely avoid associating with and living in society, and so accepting some material benefit from the general corruption around us. And, for ourselves, have we indeed remained free from every lie? Have we never, not even in our youth, joined in the mockery of someone who is weak, or just different? Or kept silence and failed to defend someone? The prophet Isaiah lamented, Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. (Is 6:5)

It is not enough to be personally upright; we need to belong to some reality besides the general corruption of the dying world; we need salvation. We need to belong to the Body of Christ, the Church, which rather than being corrupted by the sins of its members, is sanctified by the perfect holiness of its head.

Despite our sins, God loves us. God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (Jn 3:16) And, God shows his love for us in that while we were sinners Christ died for us. (Rm 5:8) Jesus Christ … is the expiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 Jn 1:2)

When we look at a crucifix we look at the testimony of God’s love. St. Paul, contemplating that testimony was able to say, He loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal 2:20)

The first step in recognizing God’s love is recognizing the gift of creation; the second step is recognizing our own need for salvation and redemption and recognizing that God has given us a Savior and Redeemer. And what a Savior, the very Son of God! And what a price of redemption, his Precious Blood!

Yet, that is but a beginning, He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, will he not also give us all things with him? (Rm 8:32) And, God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us sit with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (Eph 2:4-6) And, Christ himself loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and Father. (Rev 1:5-6) Together with the Father he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. (Eph 1:3)

Jesus Christ has given us the teaching of truth, making known to us the inner mystery of God, the Holy Trinity. No one has ever seen God; the only Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, has made him known. (Jn 1:18) Together with our baptism and confirmation, he has given us the gift of the Holy Spirit: I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him; you know him, for he dwells with you, and will be in you. (Jn 14:16)

He has indeed given us his very self in the gift of his Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so he who eats me will live because of me. (Jn 6:56-57)

All of this serves our sanctification and transformation in Christ. This is the will of God, your sanctification. (1 Th 4:3) What does this mean? St. Paul tells us, In everything God works for good with those who love him, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. (Rm 8:28-29) And: We all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is Spirit. (2 Cor 3:18) This glory, though, is still hidden in the mystery of faith until Christ appears in glory. (Col 3:1-3)

Finally, this prepares us for the fulfillment, eternal life, to know the One true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. (cf. Jn 17:3) St. John writes, See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called the children of God; and so we are. Beloved, we are God’s children now; it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him for we shall see him as he is. And every one who thus hopes in him makes himself pure as he is pure. (1 Jn 3:1-3)

Finally, our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him to subject all things to himself. (Ph 3:20-21)

That will be the new heaven and new earth, when God makes all things new, destroying death and wiping the tears from every eye.

What love God has shown us! What love Jesus Christ the Son of God has shown us! What love is given to us every day in the Holy Eucharist! This is the love that illustrates the meaning of the command, As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

Or as St. John puts it: In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (1 Jn 4:11)

If this truth of God’s love can move past our minds, reach our hearts, and penetrate our very bones, we will live with the awareness that we are constantly surrounded by and sustained by God’s love. We will live with the awareness of the tremendous gift of existence and life in our creation and the tremendous gift of grace, which makes us to be children of God, given us in our baptism. Sustained by the recognition of God’s love and overwhelmed with the recognition that all we are and have is a pure gift from God, we will be delivered from our fears and anxieties. The more we are aware of the greatness of God’s gift, the more we will be filled with a deep sense of profound gratitude, gratitude that will overflow in a spirit of generosity and self-giving love. The more we are aware of the greatness of God’s gift, which we did nothing to deserve – quite the contrary – the less we will be concerned about whether or not others are lovable.

God did not love us because we were lovable; his love for us makes us lovable. His love for others makes them lovable, even when they do not look like it or act like it. He gives to them, or offers to them, the same gift he gives to us. If he forgives us, he wants also to forgive them. If we recognize how we have been forgiven, we must then forgive others. If we consider how patient he has been with us, then we will in turn be patient with others. If we consider how kind, good, and generous he has been to us, we will in turn be kind, good, and generous to others. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another.

In this, God is glorified.