Commentary on John 13:31-35

In all three years of the Revised Common Lectionary, the Gospel readings for Easter 5 and 6 are from Jesus’ long Johannine discourse on the night before his crucifixion. It may seem odd to step back into that pre-crucifixion night at the close of the Easter season. However, one of the primary themes of these chapters from John is Jesus’ upcoming return to the Father and what that will mean for his disciples. This is just where the church finds itself on this side of Easter.

The language of “glory” and “glorify” is pervasive in John’s Gospel. The noun and the verb (only the verb appears in our passage) occur 42 times in John—more than in the other three Gospels combined.¹ The first use of “glory” in John is found in 1:14, a declaration that we have seen the glory of the Logos as the glory of the Father’s only Son (New Revised Standard Version footnote). “Glory” in John is about the revelation of Jesus as the Son sent by the Father. Specifically and shockingly, this glory is revealed especially in the Son’s loving death on the cross. In 12:23–24 Jesus declares that his hour to be glorified has come and then explains this by saying that a grain of wheat must die in the earth to bear fruit.

Now, the drama of Jesus’ glorification has begun. Judas has just gone out to arrange for Jesus’ arrest, a fact that the opening phrase of our pericope reiterates (13:30–31a). It is in the context of human failure and betrayal that Jesus declares the “now” of his glory and the glory of the Father through him.

The claims about glorification in verses 31–32 are bewildering. The word is used five times in these two verses, and the time frame keeps shifting between present and future. We heard something similar in 12:28, where past, present, and future were all included. The glorification is underway but not yet finished. John wants to draw together the reciprocal actions of the Father and the Son, and affirming such glory cannot be contained by mere chronological concerns. The whole story is encompassed by Jesus’ “now.”

In 7:33–34 Jesus told his opponents that he would be with them only a little while more, and that they would look for him but would not be able to find him or go where he is going. In 13:33 he says nearly the same thing to his disciples. Most of them will prove unable to follow Jesus to his crucifixion, but that is not the full depth of what Jesus means. Jesus is returning to the Father, and they cannot follow him there—at least not yet. However, that doesn’t mean they cannot know him or abide in his love. They will know Jesus and will continue to follow him by loving one another.

Jesus says that this is a “new” commandment, yet the command to love one’s neighbor was deeply rooted in Jewish law (Leviticus 19:18). What is new is not the content of the command but Jesus’ own role as the lover at the heart of this community’s life. Note that the command to love one another is repeated at the beginning and the end of verse 34. Sandwiched in the middle is a phrase that points to the new thing: “just as I have loved you.” Jesus is the one who has loved his own “to the end” (13:1). This love flows from the incarnation of the Word, and through it the disciples will enter into the love of the Father. This love not only models but will empower their love for one another.

It has often been suggested that John’s focus on love for one another rather than love for one’s enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27) indicates a community that has turned away from hopeful engagement with the world and has turned inward on itself. That is probably an overstatement. This Gospel affirms that God loves the whole world (3:16) and that Jesus will draw all people to himself (12:32). Mutual love within the church is not an alternative to love for neighbors outside the community but is the foundation for such love. The command to love one another is given with an eye on the rest of the world: “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

Marianne Thompson asks the crucial question, “Does it work?”² Of course, that depends on what effect we expect it to have. She points to the second-century letter of 2 Clement, which notes the result when the church fails to show such love: “When they see that we not only do not love those that hate us, but not even those who love us, they laugh us to scorn, and the Name is blasphemed” (2 Clement 13:4). On the other hand, Tertullian says that those outside the church remark, “Look how they love one another!” (Apology 39:7). But that doesn’t mean that everyone admired this or was led by it to faith in Jesus. The second-century satirist Lucian of Samosata tells the story of Peregrinus, a cynical huckster who takes absurd advantage of these Christians who oddly welcome strangers and then love them as siblings.

Yet Jesus calls us to this love even when the world remains hostile and sees only foolishness, just as the world responded to the love of Jesus by crucifying him. That is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus: to let loose such love for one another and for the world. In order to live out such loving discipleship, it will be necessary for the church to be reminded of something: It is already the object of infinite love: “my little children … as I have loved you.” It is that love that will sustain us.

Notes

1. Luke uses this vocabulary 22 times, Matthew 11 times, and Mark 4 times.
2. Marianne Meye Thompson, John. A Commentary. The New Testament Library (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), 301. The other ancient references in this paragraph are also mentioned by Thompson.