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Thursday, April 01, 2010 CW Weekly Devotional - "A New Mandate" By laneglaze @ 2:05 PM :: 145 Views :: 0 Comments :: :: Weekly Devotional   A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.  Gospel of John 13:34-35, NIV   If you love me, you will obey my command. (14:15)   Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me.(14:21)   If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching.(14:23)   He who does not love me will not obey my teaching.(14:24a)   If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love…(15:10a)   My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.(15:12)   You are my friends, if you do what I command.(15:14)   This is my command: Love each other.(15:17)   Tonight Christians around the globe will gather in celebration of Maundy Thursday, the night before Jesus died. The term “Maundy” comes from the Latin mandatum, meaning mandate or commandment. On the night before Jesus died, he not only instituted a new ritual that Christians have celebrated since (the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion), but he also gave a new mandate: his true followers will be those who love one another. Pretty simple, huh?   The Gospel writer John must have known that following Jesus’ straightforward, simple command would not be so easy to do. Over the next 52 verses, John has Jesus repeat or reaffirm explicitly the centrality of this command eight more times. Could it be that John, writing a generation or two after Jesus’ death, had already noticed Jesus’ followers struggling to love one another?   As much as I love the Church, we have failed miserably to follow Jesus’ Upper Room mandate. We compete against one another. We celebrate when a “rival” church or leader gets dethroned from a position of prominence. We make jokes about the Baptists, the Catholics, the Pentecostals…even the Methodists that are mean and divisive. Somewhere along the way, we have lost touch with Jesus’ redundant statements from the Gospel of John: true disciples love one another.   And of course many (including many within my tradition, including myself) would extend Jesus’ command to those outside the Church’s walls. Want to be a real Christian? Then love each and every human being, both within the Church and around the world. Yes, this is incredibly difficult to do, especially when someone holds a deeply religious or ideological view far different from ours.  But such is the Jesus that we worship, I believe.  His love extends to all of us, equally, no matter who we are or how we have lived our lives.   Years ago I used to believe that the best evangelism took place at revivals, camp meetings, mountain retreats and on mission trips. Today, I am convinced that the best evangelism occurs when someone experiences a group of Christians who truly love one another and who seek to share that love with the greater world. This is the kind of “preaching” that most speaks to my heart these days.   As St. Francis of Assisi famously quipped, “Preach the Gospel everyday, use words when necessary.” May God help us to “Preach the Gospel” by loving our brothers and sisters, by loving our neighbor as ourselves.   Body and blood of Christ anyone? lane Rev. C. Lane Glaze Director, Clemson Wesley Campus Minister, Clemson UMC PO Box 1703 Clemson SC 29633 864-654-5547 (o) and 864-207-9135 (cell) www.clemsonwesley.com   Feel free to forward this email to a friend. The Clemson Wesley Weekly Devotional is a ministry of the Clemson Wesley Foundation, the United Methodist Church’s ministry to students on the campus of Clemson University. The purpose of this email is to look at issues relevant to the life of Clemson students through the lens of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If you would like your name added to this list, email Rev. Lane Glaze at glaze@clemson.edu.

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