The New Commandment - Deeper and Wider

It has been a while since Easter -- almost a year actually...I am anxious to celebrate it again this year - I would like to have another Maundy Thursday service. Another time to focus on the most important event in world history - it's just not possible that anything in the past, present or future has ever or will ever come close to the cross in its importance--except maybe Judgment Day -- but that's about the cross, too.

Anyway, Maundy Thursday services celebrate the Lord's Supper (and our Savior's last meal with His disciples before His crucifixion) and Christ giving His most important commandment (Maundy comes from mandate, or commandment).

     Little children, I shall be with you a little while longer. You will seek Me; and as I said to the Jews, 'Where I am going, you cannot come,' so now I say to you:

"A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all shall know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  -- John 13

I used to worry over this passage a little. Because the commandment to love each other was not new.
It was clearly commanded way back in Leviticus well over a thousand years before the Incarnation.

You shall not hate your brother in your heart...you shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself. Leviticus 19:18 

So how could Christ call His commandment new?

As I get older I can begin to see it. (Not that age has anything to do with it!)  It is one of those things that is so profoundly simple!

 Christ's new law was wider and deeper:

1. It was wider because it included all mankind. When the Leviticus law was given to the Jews they knew they would be living in Jewish communities (as soon as they could get out of that wilderness!) Their neighbors were Jews. They were 'the children of your people' as the Leviticus verse said.. But Christ changed completely the notion of who our neighbors are. The lawyer asked Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?"

We all know the answer  -- the story of the Good Samaritan. Jesus, when finished, asked, "So which of these three do you think was neighbor to him who fell among the thieves?"

The answer: "He who showed mercy on him"

Jesus said, "Go and do likewise."

So the notion of "neighbor" was expanded to include everyone who at anytime showed mercy or was in need of mercy.

This was the original "Good Neighbor Policy."

2. Christ's new commandment was also deeper. The ancient Jews were told to love their neighbors as they loved themselves.  So Christ raised the bar to an unheard of level -- they were to love each other as Christ Himself loved them -- which was more than He loved Himself - they were to love each other
more than they loved themselves....like...that must mean...I am to love my neighbor more than I love myself...even if I don't know him, or like him....You must love each other as I have loved you, He said.

He Himself was the standard -  the template.

In the Garden, Christ payed that if possible, "take this cup away from me. Nevertheless not My will, but Yours be done." (Luke 22) and then later He said to Peter, "Shall I not drink the cup which My Father has given me?" (John 18).

He drank the cup. He loved us more than He loved Himself.

That made it the new commandment.

Go and do likewise.