It Takes A Church...

Day 2: Crossing God’s World, Rooted in God’s Love

Y-Malawi: Prayers for Africa
From March 30-April 9, I will be traveling with a team of people to help establish a ministry partnership in Malawi Africa working with people whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the AIDS virus.  Each day I will post our itinerary and an excerpt from our trip devotional so that you can pray along with us.  On Sunday, April 10, the SCPC team members will share our experiences in our worship services and I will post some reflections and picture from the trip starting then. 

Itinerary: Travel Day

Scripture: John 15:4-5
(Jesus said…) “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from me.
5 “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do nothing. (NLT)

Thought for the day:
Life is, first of all, not entirely about doing and giving.  And contrary to the values of our culture, it is not only about productivity and success.  Life is rooted in receiving.  It is sustained because so much has been given to us.
This is also true of the life of faith, the life we live through the empowerment of the Spirit.  The God of grace come to embraces us.  To renew us.  To awaken us from our spiritual slumber.  To let light into the deep caverns of our existence.

And even a life of giving and receiving is rooted in receptivity.  Mother Teresa comments, “The contemplative and apostolic fruitfulness of our way of life depends on our being rooted in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
—Charles Ringma, Wash the Feet of the World with Mother Teresa, Reflection #1

Prayer
O Jesus, you are the Author of Life, the Giver of Life.  You are life itself and in you we find all life and peace and goodness.  Help us to be keenly aware of all that we have received, are receiving and even will receive through this experience of doing and giving.  Help us remember that this is a ministry to the needy, and none are more needy than we are.  We need you more and more each day.  Amen.

Day 1: Leaving Home

Y-Malawi: Prayers for Africa
  From March 30-April 9, I will be traveling with a team of people to help establish a ministry partnership in Malawi Africa working with people whose lives and livelihoods have been devastated by the AIDS virus.  Each day I will post our itinerary and an excerpt from our trip devotional so that you can pray along with us.  On Sunday, April 10, the SCPC team members will share our experiences in our worship services and I will post some reflections and picture from the trip starting then. 

Itinerary: Travel Day

Scripture: Ephesians 1:16b-20
I pray for you constantly, 17 asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. 18 I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the wonderful future he has promised to those he called. I want you to realize what a rich and glorious inheritance he has given to his people.
19 I pray that you will begin to understand the incredible greatness of his power for us who believe him. This is the same mighty power 20 that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God’s right hand in the heavenly realms. (NLT)

Thoughts for the day:
“One way to define the spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something better, which is following Jesus.”
  —Eugene Peterson.

“The border means more than a customs house, a passport officer, a man with a gun.  Over there everything is going to be different; life is never going to be quite the same again after your passport has been stamped.”
  —Graham Greene

Prayer
O Lord, as we leave behind the comfort, familiarity and security of friends, family and home, allow us to have hearts that are so flooded with your light, so open to being changed, so hungry for understanding and wisdom that we can trust all that is unknown to you who knows and sees all.  Thank you Lord, for the community of family and friends who have sent us, who hold us in prayer and who await our return.  Bless and protect them as you bless and protect us, we pray.  Thank you especially for the friends who will use this site to pray for us.  Unite us together in our common mission to follow and glorify you. Amen

"The Scandalous Failure"

The heart of the matter is the scandalous failure to live what we (evangelicals) preach.-- Ron Sider, CT Magazine, April 2005, p. 70

Tomorrow I leave with a team for Africa that seeks to establish a new partnership ministry to care for those who are affected by the AIDS virus.  In many ways, the spiritual roots of this trip for me can be traced back to two writers: Ron Sider and Tom Sine. Their writings in the late seventies and early eighties deeply impacted the way I think of the gospel and our call to live out the faith we proclaim.

It seems providential to me that Christianity Today has just published an interview with Ron Sider that is about his latest book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (we share the same publisher, Baker Books). In the interview, Sider argues that evangelicals have so bought into the individualistic values of our culture that widespread hypocrisy is rampant in amongst those who claim to be followers of Christ.  Most apparent is the lack of genuine life-transformation in our Christian communities that will point to the reality and power of Christ.  If you'd like to read an excerpt of the book, click here.

Readers of my books and this blog know that hypocrisy, individualism, Christian community, and life-transformation are "hot topics" for me.  So, as I prepare to leave for Africa tomorrow, I will add some additional "reflective grist for the mill" by excerpting some of Sider's comments.

Perhaps contemplating the challenge offered by Sider and the opportunity before us in hurting places of the world like Malawi will lead all of us to consider more deeply what it means to follow Jesus today.

The tragedy is that poll after poll...show that evangelicals live just like the world.  Constrast that with what the New Testament says about what happens when people come to living faith in Christ.  There's supposed to be radical transformation in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The disconnect between our biblical beliefs and our practice is just, I think, heart rending.

--Ron Sider, CT, April 2005, p. 70

Malawi: Non Nobis Solum

The plight of Malawi has been rightly described by Carol Bellamy, head of UNICEF, as the perfect storm of human deprivation, one that brings together climatic disaster, impoverishment, the AIDS pandemic and the long-standing burdens of malaria, schistosomiasis and other diseases.

--Book excerpt from Jeffrey D. Sachs, The End of Poverty, printed in Time Magazine, March 14, 2005

In Malawi, AIDS is a terrible but under-reported scourge  Life expectancy has been cut to 43, and officially up to 30% of people aged 14-49 are infected. Sadly, 60% of new infections in the 14-25 age group are girls and there are up to 400,000 orphans. (However), Malawi continues to be spiritually the most receptive country in central Africa. 

--The Gideon, February 2005, p. 16-17

Last year, our church completed our second capital campaign for our $ 9 million dollar campus renovation.  Our theme for our campaign was called "A Community for Everyone: Non Nobis Solum."  As we had done  in the first campaign, we set aside the first 10% of the capital campaign funds raised for three new mission projects:

1. Intentional evangelism and outreach in our growing community.
2. The establishment of a new hispanic ministry on our church campus.
3. To develop a partnership that would get our people personally involved in the world-wide Christian effort to address the effects of AIDS in Africa.

As you can imagine there was ample debate and discussion about the decision to set aside some of the desperately needed funds (we do have a mortgage payment each month of nearly $60,000 that has to be paid!).  But ultimately our Session decided that the theme of our campaign was truly the heartbeat and mission of our church.  We wanted to be a church that exists "Non Nobis Solum" which is Latin for "not for ourselves alone." 

Tomorrow, as seven of us from SCPC join 17 others from around the country to travel to Malawi, Africa, we will be one huge step closer to fulfilling one part of that larger vision. 

As a pastor, I rejoice that our church is healthy and growing.  We have had some hard days as a church, a painful split ten years ago required a long recovery.  For years, we had to focus on our own healing and unity.  But now, strong and committed to a missional vision, we seek to become more and more involved in the work of God to heal and reconcile the world. 

Over the next ten days, I would ask your prayers for our Y-Malawi Partnership. I will post some excerpts from our (expected) itinerary as well as the devotional reflections that we ill be using for our prayers and discussion.  Please allow your prayers to join with ours across the miles.

• Pray for safety and health. 
• Pray for unity for a diverse team that literally comes from across the country.
• Pray that our eyes will be open to the need and that God will grant us vision to see what our small contribution to his great redeeming work will be.
• Pray that we will have the experiences and then the words to engage our churches in this partnership.
• Pray for our potential mission partners: World Vision, Opportunity International; Fishers, Trainers and Senders; the Presbyterian Church youth ministry and missionaries in Malawi; the Jesus Film Project (and those we are still to discover.) 
• Pray that as we follow the King, we will ALL become like the King.

I also want to alert you to another blogger named Bill Rice (a member of my chuch) at "Dawn's Early Light" who is going to offer regular posts and updates on Malawi so that all who are interested can continue to grow in awareness of the need and challenges in this land.   Thanks Bill!

Y-Malawi: Far as the Curse is Found

"How can we become the people through whom God reconciles and heals the world?" 
                                             --NT Wright

It is still midmorning in Malawi when we arrive at a small village, Nthandire, about an hour outside of Lilongwe, the capital. We have come over dirt roads, passing women and children walking barefoot with water jugs, wood for fuel, and other bundles. The midmorning temperature is sweltering. In this subsistence maize-growing region of a poor, landlocked country in southern Africa, families cling to life on an unforgiving terrain. This year has been a lot more difficult than usual because the rains have failed. The crops are withering in the fields that we pass. 

If the village were filled with able-bodied men, who could have built rainwater-collecting units on rooftops and in the fields, the situation would not be so dire. But as we arrive in the village, we see no able-bodied young men at all. In fact, older women and dozens of children greet us, but there is not a young man or woman in sight. Where, we ask, are the workers? Out in the fields? The aid worker who has led us to the village shakes his head sadly and says no. Nearly all are dead. The village has been devastated by AIDS.
(From Time Magazine cover story, March 14, 2005, "The End of Poverty" by Jeffrey Sachs.)

This morning, with the joyful sounds of Easter Sunday services still ringing in our hearts, 24 people from 5 churches and one international relief agency are busy making preparations for a trip to Malawi, Africa. 

The planes leave two different coasts of our continent on Wednesday.  Most of us have never been to Africa, among us is one teenager and an eleven year old (my son, Brooks).  There is also a doctor, some nurses, pastors and relief workers.  But as we prepare to fly into Lilongwe, we are all--young and old--clergy and laity--simply learners who seek to find a way to "add our light to the sum of light" that we believe God desires to shine in this tiny corner of the world that has been so devastated by AIDS, and reels under the weight of extreme poverty. 

For the first time since I traveled to Haiti, Dominican Republic and the Yucatan Peninsula as a young youth worker, I too get to be part of a short-term mission project.  The seven members of San Clemente Presbyterian are leaders in our mission ministry, dedicated to leading future trips, and prayerfully asking God to lead us to a wise, enduring partnership that will do some genuine good in God's name. 

We are part of a fledglingly partnership that was initiated by Phil Jemmett, Shawn Parr and the leadership of La Jolla Presbyterian Church in San Diego, CA.  Phil and friends approached World Vision and through their creative work together have come up with a partnership where 10 churches will draw on their administrative expertise and experience to establish an area development project in Nkhoma and develop partnerships with five ministries in the area to provide the most wholistic Christian ministry possible. 

Our team goes to learn, define the partnership, make decisions for our churches and set the groundwork for future teams.  As a reader of this blog, I would ask for your prayers for our team and for our churches.  For all of us this is a most significant investment of time and resources.  But even more, we believe that the opportunity that is before us in Africa, is also an opportunity for our churches to become more like Christ as we do the work of Christ.

I have been charged with writing a team devotional.  From Wednesday March 30-April 9 this site will feature excerpts from the devotional so that you too can pray with us and consider also what God would have you do as part of his work to bring love and healing to some of the most broken places in the world.

The beloved Christmas carol "Joy to the World" declares that the Lord has "comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found." As followers of the Lord, it is our job to extend that blessing and healing throughout the world.

Tomorrow, I'll give some more background information for your prayerful consideration.

Easter Comfort

Four sermons to preach today--joyfully and eagerly. It is always a great privilege.  This poem will conclude my message and I offer it, and the quote from N. T. Wright in the other Easter Post as my gifts to you all today. 

But please go listen to a real sermon, some hearty singing and consider the question:  What on earth happened here today?

“But Thou wilt sin and grief destroy;
That so the broken bones may joy,
And tune together in well-set song,
Full of his praises,
Who dead men raises,
Fractures well cured make us more strong.” 

George Herbert

Easter Challenge

The bodily resurrection of Jesus isn't a take-it-or-leave-it thing, as though some Christians are welcome to believe it and others are welcome not to believe it. Take it away, and the whole picture is totally different. Take it away, and Karl Marx was probably right to accuse Christianity of ignoring the problems of the material world. Take it away, and Sigmund Freud was probably right to say that Christianity is a wish-fulfillment religion. Take it away, and Friedrich Nietzsche was probably right to say that Christianity is a religion for wimps. Put it back, and you have a faith that can take on the postmodern world that looks to Marx, Freud and Nietzsche as its prophets; you can beat them at their own game with the Easter news that the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

Those who celebrate the mighty resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, therefore, have an awesome and nonnegotiable responsibility. When we say "Alleluia! Christ is risen!" we are saying that Jesus is Lord of the world, and that the present would-be lords of the world are not. When we sing, in the old hymn, that "Judah's Lion burst his chains and crushed the serpent's head," are we ready to put that victory into practice? Are we ready to speak up for, and to take action on behalf of, those even in our own local community, let alone farther afield, who are quietly being crushed by uncaring and unjust systems?
Are we ready to speak up for the truth of the gospel over the
dinner table and in the coffee bar and in the council chamber?

-N. T. Wright, "Grave matters," Christianity Today, April 6, 1998.

Holy Saturday: The Christian Life in Miniature

Something strange is happening on earth today, a great silence, and stillness. The whole earth keeps silence because the King is asleep. The earth trembled and is still because God has fallen asleep in the flesh and he has raised up all who have slept ever since the world began. God has died in the flesh and hell trembles with fear.

He has gone to search for our first parent, as for a lost sheep. Greatly desiring to visit those who live in darkness and in the shadow of death, he has gone to free from sorrow the captive Adam and Eve, he who is both God and the son of Eve. The Lord approached them bearing the cross, the weapon that had won him the victory. At the sight of him Adam, the first man he had created, struck his breast in terror and cried out to everyone: "My Lord be with you all." Christ answered him: "And with your spirit." He took him by the hand and raised him up, saying: "Awake, O sleeper, and rise from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

—The reading for Holy Saturday in the Liturgy of the Hours

Some years ago I read this essay on Holy Saturday by Eugene Peterson. It made a deep impression on me and led me to start a Holy Saturday service at our church when I became the pastor here. 

We spend an hour on Saturday Evening (7 PM, in the sanctuary, if you are nearby and want to drop in), sitting, as it were, in front of the tomb.  The disciples are gone.  Only some women will show up this day.  (It is not an "early Easter" as some may celebrate it.)

By the time we run into the disciples again, they have either been locked away in fear of the Jews, as it says in some places or they’ve been gathering together trying to figure out what to do with themselves. Most of them are downcast, few have gone back to their old trades, none of them expected a resurrection.

It’s worth pausing to think about that, as we who are so quick to run to Easter, that oftentimes we miss even Good Friday. Or oftentimes, even slower to recognize what it must have been like to have been disciples, who having given their lives to follow this one, who they believed would change the world, now had to recognize, at least in their own lives that their following had been failure. None of them understood what Paul would later describe on that cross that the sins of the world had been taken away. None of them at that point expected anything except to pick up the pieces of their lives and go back to work.

Through out the history of the church, Holy Saturday has been a day in which very few congregations have celebrated it together, but the people of God used to be encouraged to use it as a day of reflection. A day where you set aside ordinary tasks and instead consider again the great promises of God.

In times of God’s absence, what we have is the promise. Many scholars who’ve looked at this and other spiritual writers have recognized that Holy Saturday is a wonderful metaphor if you will, for the Christian life. The time in between, the work of Christ that secures our salvation and the coming back, the second coming of Christ, that gives us the fulfillment of the promise.

Where do we live in this in between time? Rest on the promises.

But, for this Holy Saturday, let me offer this prayer:

And so Lord God let today prepare our hearts for tomorrow. We are most fortunate for we know what tomorrow brings. We are most blessed because we know what we will celebrate. But our everyday experience is closer to those disciples. Though we have been told that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his righteousness. And even though we have been told that what you have started in us that you will complete on the day of Christ Jesus. And even though we have been told that nothing will every separate us from the will of God, very often in the middle of the in between times, we forget. So like those disciples who were told so many times that you would raise from the dead, and yet didn’t hear, we come to you today.  We humbly ask you to open our hearts and our ears, so that we might again hear the promises and that this time believing them, we might begin to live tomorrow as truly Easter people. Amen

What Only Grace Could Call Good

Last night, with Peter and the rest of the disciples, we took our place in the upper room, at the dinner table with Jesus as host.  We discovered that we must not only follow and serve Jesus, but we must allow him to touch and serve us, ministering to us at the very place where we need the "full extent of his love." 

Tonight, we will accompany Peter as he goes with Jesus from the upper room to the Garden.   There he will be betrayed into his enemies hands, he will be tried, condemned, mocked, scourged, and finally nails will pierce his wrists and feet, the cross will be lifted up and dropped into a whole, his arms will become dislocated and he will spend three agonizing hours pushing up on the nails in his feet so that he might get a breath of air. 

Finally, he will declare that "It is finished."  He will surrender his spirit to his Father in heaven, and the Son of God will die at the hands of those whom he came to save. 

Peter will watch from a distance, growing more fearful as each moment passes. In this night, he will go from the brave defender, deftly cutting off a soldier's ear, ready to fight to the death for Jesus, to a cursing coward, denying Christ three times publicly, even shouting his profanity in the face of a little girl. 

When the cock's crow greets the morning, Peter will be a defeated denying disciple.  Sifted by Satan like wheat, poured out and utterly faithless. 

It is a terrible night, dear friends, which only the eyes of faith can see as "Good Friday" which only grace could call "good" at all. 

Back in the upper room, preparing for the events that he knows would consume him; Jesus tried to prepare his disciples.  Look at these words from Luke 22:31-34

“Simon, Simon, listen! Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your own faith may not fail; and you, when once you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” And he said to him, “Lord, I am ready to go with you to prison and to death!” Jesus said, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day, until you have denied three times that you know me."

This text from Luke was early on a source of great confusion for me.  Jesus not only predicts his own death, but also Peter's denials.  We know this from many different gospel passages.  But in this text, Jesus says that "Satan has demanded to sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you." 

But notice what he doesn’t say.: 
He doesn’t say, “I have prayed for you so that you won’t have to go through this ordeal.“
Or “I have prayed for you so that you will stand firm and die with me.”
Or, “I have prayed for you so that you won’t deny me.”

No, Jesus says none of this. Instead, he says, “I have prayed for you so that your faith will not fail”…when you deny me.  He then says, “once you have turned back” or as another version says, “once you recover”, “strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus prays that Peter would be of help to the others because of the failure that he is about to experience.  Jesus knows Peter better than Peter knows himself.  Jesus knows the future and predicts it accurately.  Jesus understands and prays for Peter even knowing that he will deny him. 

Of course, Peter wasn’t the only one to deny Jesus.  Judas Iscariot is the famous betrayer of Jesus; the one who received 30 pieces of silver to turn Jesus over to the Roman and Jewish authorities.  And most of us probably think that Judas’ betrayal was far worse.   Peter may have denied Jesus to avoid death, but he didn’t betray Jesus and cause his death.

But let’s think about that again.

Judas was one of the twelve, one of the followers of Christ that lived and ministered with him.  So, to betray Jesus for a profit is certainly a terrible thing.  But some scholars have conjectured that Judas was likely a zealot.  A member of a revolutionary party, who thought that Jesus was the one who was going to start the war with Rome.  It could be that Judas, like Peter, was getting annoyed by Jesus’ talk of dying and wanted to force his hand.  He may very well have betrayed Jesus with the intent of making Jesus start the overthrow, while he made a quick profit. 

Peter was also confused by Jesus’ actions, but Jesus had spent considerable extra time teaching and correcting him.  Peter was the one who knew that Jesus was the Messiah.  Peter was one of the ones who went to the Garden when Jesus prayed for help.  Peter was the one upon whom Christ had promised to build his church.  And Peter was one of the inner three; one of Jesus’ best friends.  In many ways, Peter’s denial is even more unthinkable than Judas’ betrayal.

So, what’s difference?  Why do we honor Peter today but Judas is still considered a traitor?  It is not the gravity of their failures.  It is what they did with their failures. 

Judas had not learned to trust Jesus.  Judas was used to taking things into his own hands.  Judas betrays Jesus and then in remorse, realizing that he's been a pawn for Jesus' enemies, takes even his failure into his own hand and take his life by his own hand.

Peter had learned to trust Jesus.  Peter trusted Jesus with even his failures. And from Peter we too learn that to fully follow Jesus, we must trust him with everything, even our failures of him.

In my book, Showtime, I described how as a young Christian I denied I was a Christian in the face of a direct question by a homeless man in front of a small crowd of strangers. Peter denied Jesus because he feared for his life. I denied Jesus because I feared being embarrassed in front of people I didn't even know. I thought I would never be able to be a pastor, but what I learned that night was that our failing Christ is never the final word. 

Can we trust Jesus with even our failures of him?  Can we believe that the death on the cross that Jesus suffered is meant to pay even for our sins that put him there? 

Let's make no mistake.  We all have betrayed Jesus.  We all have rejected the love he came to show.  It was our sins that put him on the cross.  It was for our love that he died. 

When Jesus dies, Peter is not around.  John is there; the thief on the cross is there.  Judas is dead at his own hand.  Peter is running in grief. 

My friends, let us stay near the cross.  Let us not think that somehow, this sacrifice is never enough for our sins.  Let's look to the cross and see that this Friday, in all of it's horror is the most "Good Friday" of all. 

Because nothing, not even our denial of Christ can thwart his love poured out on that cross. It is time to walk with Jesus into the darkness of Good Friday. 

New Covenant, New Commandment

“(The Lord’s Supper) held such a strong place in Paul’s own thinking that he could speak of the very action of the meal as ‘proclaiming the death of the Lord until he comes.’ Doing it said it. Touch this symbol, then, and you touch a nerve centre.”  N. T. Wright, The Meal Jesus Gave Us, p. 39

If you ask a Christian the essence of the faith, it’s likely that you’ll hear a simple text offered as sound bite.  Usually its John 3:16 and that of course is not a bad place to start at all.  In other places, I have suggested that 1 Peter 2:9-10 is equally as pithy and even more powerful.  And of course many of us would immediately go to the “Great Commission” of Matthew 28:19-20.

But consider this question: What did Jesus emphasize in his last gathering with his disciples? 

What did he command his disciples to do with nearly his last words before death?  So, what is the essence of the Christian faith, the great “So what?” of our discipleship.

I believe it is none other than the “New Commandment” of John 13:34-35.  (The name “Maundy Thursday comes from the Latin words “Mandatum Novarum”: New Commandment.)

But let’s set the scene again.

Most scholars would say John’s gospel account is a highly edited, deeply symbolic account meant to communicate the lasting theological significance of Jesus’ actions. It’s not that John “made this up”, it’s just that when his account was written a good 50 years after Jesus’ death, they had had plenty of time to reflect on what Jesus said and did and choose to emphasize what was most important.

In John’s account, the disciples have gathered to celebrate the Passover, the great saving act of God for his people.  The dinner was and is highly ritualized and they expected nothing different than for Jesus to lead them in the ancient rite that would celebrate what God did in saving his people from Egypt.

And Jesus keeps “messing with” the tradition and gets them all confused. 

First he acts like a simple slave and washes their feet (v. 1-9).  They haven’t even started the meal yet and Jesus is teaching his disciples about their vocation.  They are to do what he does.  They are to act like he acts.  Whatever happens to him will happen to them.

Then on the heels (pardon the pun) of that odd action, he declares that one in the room is about to betray him.  He doesn’t reveal the betrayer to stop the betrayal, but instead to assure the disciples “I tell you this now, so that when it happens you will believe I am the Messiah.”

In John’s account, he doesn’t give us the actual “words of institution.”  But we know from the other accounts that Jesus changed the expected Passover rite so that from now on every one of their meals together would be a reminder of the “new covenant” that he made with them in that upper room.  In John, Jesus just feeds Judas the bread of honor.  He loves and honors his betrayer.  In essence “offering himself up” in that one act. 

The sacrificial lamb to the slaughter.  The one whose body will be given, blood shed.  In telling of Jesus offering the bread to Judas, John reminds his readers of what they know so well from the words they practice at every meal:  Jesus is the one offered up in this new covenant that will free us all from the oppression of slavery and death.

And then he gives them their commandment:
“So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (NLT)

Jesus is preparing to die, predicts that Judas will betray him, that Peter will fall away and that he is going to die. He offers himself to his betrayer and what does he tell them with his last words?

“Love each other. There are lots of people following lots of teachers in the world, lots of “disciples” following lots of Rabbis.  If you want to prove to the world that you belong to me: Love each other.” 

This is the New Commandment the response to what Jesus offers as the New Covenant.

John then gives us three chapters (14-17) of Jesus’ teaching to equip them for that task.  To love each other for the rest of their lives no matter what, by the power of the Spirit that will be given to them in obedience to the teachings that he has given them, loyal and connected to Jesus like branches on a vine, in the face of whatever opposition the world throws at them.  He then prays for them and asks God to protect them and in their loving each other, help them to fulfill his ministry to the world.

That’s the essence of Christian faithfulness:  All that we do is to demonstrate to the world that we belong to Jesus by the way we love each other by the power of the Spirit, in obedience to Jesus words, rooted in Jesus’ presence in the face to the world’s opposition until Jesus returns. 

And tomorrow, we'll witness once again, the "full extent of God's love" for his world.  The love we proclaim with our lips and demonstrate with our lives, first to each other and then to God's world.