John 13:34-36
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Simon Peter said to him, “Lord, where are you going…”
One thing usually pointed out here in the upper room is that Jesus will be leaving them soon, and they’ll need one another in the coming days of His absence. But for the first time today, I connected Peter’s response to a deeper possibility. Peter basically ignores this new command to love those around him, and stays focused completely on Jesus. Even though Jesus just told him to focus on the other disciples!
Is it possible that we can get so wrapped up in the grief of losing a close loved one, or the pain of personal trauma, that we can’t remember our call to love others? Absolutely it is. It’s a very natural response, which is why Jesus brings it up. The consequences of sin and heart wounds isolate us and send us within ourselves. We need to work against that and… “love one another.”
Now, this isn’t a heartless demand to them not to feel pain at His departure, or to you not to grieve when it is time. But we should seek to dig out from under our grief and be at least functional again, over time. We may even find that reaching out to others in compassion and service can be a key way we DO overcome our personal hurts and wounds. After all, God “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God” (2 Cor. 1:4).
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