Acts
14:21b-27; Rev. 21:1-5a; Jn. 13:1, 31-33a, 34-35
A few years ago a Newspapers reported a
touching incident.
While on vacation in Florida, Gareth
Griffith, decided to try sky diving. He was jumping in tandem with Michael
Costello, an experienced instructor. Something went wrong.
The main chute failed to open.
The backup failed too. The two men went into a violent spin as they plummeted
to their destiny. The instructor corrected the spin and regained control of the
fall. Griffith was on bottom and the instructor was on top.
As they neared the ground, the
instructor, folded his arms and legs, causing the pair to rotate, in doing so,
the instructor hit the ground first, cushioning his student's blow.
Griffith survived. Costello wasn't so
lucky—he sacrificed his own life so that Griffith could live.
During the Gospel Reading, we heard the words of
Jesus “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”
The new commandment has to be understood against
the prevailing law of the contemporary world. "An eye for an eye", "a tooth for a tooth" or the
law of retaliation, is the principle that a person who has injured another
person is to be penalized to a similar degree, and the person inflicting such
punishment should be the injured party. To those ears that at familiar with
this principle the command of Jesus very strange. But Jesus made it very
concrete with the next sentence. “Just as I have loved
you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are
my disciples, if you have love for one another." He gave them a concrete example to follow.
Jesus included everybody in his
love. One of the clearest features of the life and teachings of Jesus is
the way that Jesus included people that everybody else left out. Jesus
included criminals like the thief on the cross, the people that were
unclean - those who did not keep all of the cleanliness laws and rituals, and
people who were outcast – the Samaritans, Gentiles, the poor, the sick and
lepers. Jesus always defined his mission on the basis of who is included, not
on who is left out.
Jesus broke religious laws to help out
casts and to express love for them. He healed the blind man on the Sabbath
and broke the laws against working by making clay and by healing. Jesus
did not waste time trying to decide who is to blame for sickness and
pain. He just helped them out.
The listeners of Jesus experienced
these qualities in the love of Jesus in various occasions. They experienced the
love of Jesus in the form of compassion. During his ministry, he was
delighted to welcome them whenever they clustered around him. He had an acute
understanding of their need for warm acceptance.
Jesus showed great compassion for
women. Israel was a patriarchal society in which women occupied a subordinate
position and in many ways were treated as social and spiritual inferiors to
men. It’s difficult to generalize, because rabbis differed among themselves on
this issue, and fathers differed in the upbringing of their daughters. Husbands
also differed in how controlling and restrictive they were with their wives.
Jesus, however, was sensitive to the needs of all people whether male or
female. He exhibited an all-inclusive compassion that broke through the
traditional gender restrictions and taboos. In order to heal her, Jesus allowed
a woman, who had been bleeding for twelve years, to touch him. Jesus welcomed
her with her with great gentleness. Another woman, a prostitute, approached
Jesus while he was eating in a Pharisee’s house. She poured precious ointment
on Jesus’s feet and washed them with her tears. Compassionately, Jesus, who
knew her penitence and faith, defended that bold, extravagant action and sent
her away with a benediction of peace.
Widows especially elicited Jesus’s
compassionate help. A typical example of Jesus’s attitude toward widows was his
encounter with a funeral procession outside the city of Nain. A young man had
died. He was the only child of his grief-stricken mother who faced loneliness
and in all probability destitution. When Jesus saw the funeral procession and
heard the mother sobbing, he was moved with compassion. “His heart went out to
her”. He didn’t wait for any appeal. He acted. He touched the coffin, risking
ritual contamination, and commanded the corpse to rise.
Jesus also broke through other
barriers. He didn’t hesitate to touch lepers who were to avoid all human
contact. He exercised his power on behalf of needy individuals regardless of
their race. He healed the son of a centurion, an officer in Rome’s oppressive
army. He healed the daughter of a pagan, a Canaanite woman.
The listeners of
Jesus experienced the great patience of Jesus. When sinners were brought
to him he patiently received them. So when Jesus spoke about the new
commandment of love his hearers recollected how it was seen in the life of
Jesus.
Jesus was a perfect
example of kindness. The story of Good Samaritan and the story of the Prodigal
son set before the listeners of Jesus new realms of kindness. There is nothing more astounding in the kindness
of Jesus than his many gospel-recorded miracles —Jesus touches lepers, heals
cripples and feed the hungry.
The love that Jesus showed them is
a type of love that is shown in service and sacrifice. Jesus tells the
disciples that all will know that they are his disciples because of the love
they show for one another. This description of the early Christian community
was seen in the Acts of the Apostles: “See how they love one another.”
Christian love is the hallmark of Christianity. We see it lived in the witness
of the martyrs. We see it in the example of the lives of the saints. We see it
in the holy women and men who live and love daily, making small and large
sacrifices for others.
Let us do our little bit so that
we will be remembered by everyone who come into contact with us.
Satish