The Fifth Sunday of Easter

May 18, 2025

John 13:31-35

Because He Lives— We Live Lives of Lavish Love!

31When he was gone, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. 32If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

33My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.

34A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (NIV1984)

Dear fellow worshipers of our living Lord and Savior,

He is risen! He is risen indeed!

For us, today is the Fifth Sunday of Easter. For us, today is yet another glorious opportunity to gather together with our brothers and sisters in the faith and rejoice— rejoice in knowing that our Jesus kept His promise to physically rise from the dead on the third day. Here in our text, however, we see that for Jesus it is the last night before His crucifixion. That means that Jesus has gathered together with His disciples in the Upper Room in Jerusalem. It was there in the Upper Room that Jesus gave to His Church the wonderful Sacrament of Holy Communion. It was there in the Upper Room that Jesus showed His disciples the “full extent of his love”— by washing His disciples’ feet. (John 13:1) It was there in the Upper Room that Jesus had one last chance to privately give to His disciples something that would teach them, something to remember Him by, something they could embrace for the rest of their lives. It was there in the Upper Room that Jesus gave to His disciples— both then and now— a “new command: Love one another.”

As you and I join Jesus and His disciples there in that Upper Room, as we watch Jesus’ actions, as we listen to Jesus’ words, let’s take this opportunity to focus on this truth: Because He Lives— We Live Lives of Lavish Love!

John begins our text in a very straight-forward way. He says, “When he was gone, Jesus said, ‘Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.”

“When he was gone.” This is a reference to Judas. Judas had just left the Upper Room to betray the Son of Man, to betray his Friend— for thirty pieces of silver. These words reveal to us that Jesus not only knew exactly what was about to happen, but He was in control of what was about to happen! But we might wonder— why does Judas’ departure lead Jesus to say, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him”? How does Judas’ betrayal bring “glory” to not only Jesus, but also to the heavenly Father? When we take a step back and look at the bigger picture it becomes much easier to understand Jesus’ words.

This betrayal and the resulting suffering and death of the Lord’s Christ (Pointing to the cross) reveals the “glory” of all of God’s planning for our salvation— even before the Fall of Adam and Eve into sin. Judas’ betrayal led directly to Jesus’ arrest, His suffering, His crucifixion and His sacrificial death on the cross. The sacrifice of the perfect Lamb of God fulfilled, completed and replaced the countless innocent animals that were sacrificed on God’s altar for hundreds upon hundreds of years. Jesus’ sacrifice fulfilled everything that God had promised through His prophets of old. Jesus’ sacrifice reveals that He is the One who would bear our iniquity. He is the One who would crush Satan for us. He is the One who would set us free. This is the eternal lavish love of our God that broke into our cold and loveless world the night the Christmas angel proclaimed to the shepherds, “Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). This is the lavish eternal love that finds its glory “now,” here, at the betrayal of Jesus by Judas. This is the lavish eternal love that now shines like a glorious beacon for all the world to see!

Do not overlook what this means for you, my friends. God’s Plan of Salvation for this world is truly glorious because it was done for only one reason: to rescue us poor, lost, miserable sinners from an eternity of suffering in hell. Jesus’ only concern was to redeem us, to buy us back from the power of sin, death, and the devil at the cost of His own holy, precious, innocent blood. Jesus secured eternal freedom for us by doing what we could not do: defeating death and satisfying the demands of God’s holy Law. And so, yes, Judas’ betrayal resulted in “glory” for both the Son of Man and for the heavenly Father. The Father is “glorified” because He willingly gave His only begotten Son so that everyone who believes in Jesus shall have eternal life. The Son is “glorified” because the cross (Pointing to the cross) proclaims the “full extent of his love” for you and for me.

With that eternal glory shining brightly in the background Jesus goes on to say to His disciples, “My children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come.” The word that is translated here as “My children” was a term of endearment. By using this term Jesus was once again expressing His lavish love for His disciples. That lavish love, however, required that in just a few short hours Jesus would not only leave His disciples, but as the Lord told them, “Where I am going, you cannot come.” You know where Jesus was going, don’t you. He was going to the cross on Calvary’s hill. No one else could travel the road that Jesus was walking. Only Jesus could travel the road that required His death and His descent into hell to proclaim His victory, as well as His glorious resurrection from the dead and His ascension home to heaven.

After He highlighted the “glory” that Judas’ betrayal would bring to Him and after He highlighted the “glory” that the heavenly Father would receive as Jesus, the Son of Man, fulfilled the Father’s Plan of Salvation for this world, Jesus goes on to say to His disciples, He goes on to say to you and to me: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. All men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.”

While the separation of Jesus from His disciples would fill them with sorrow— for a short time!— the glorified Savior fills them with joy and with fulfillment by giving them a “new,” an “unheard of” command. What makes this command “new”? What makes this command “unheard of”? As we all know, way back in the days of Moses the Lord God commanded His people, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19:18). When the expert in the Law tested Jesus by asking Him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus answered, “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:36-39).

What makes this command “new,” what makes this command “unheard of” is the basis for this love! That basis is— Jesus! Jesus is the fulfillment of lavish love! Jesus is the personification of lavish love! Jesus has made the “old” command “new” by making it deeper and broader and fuller! No longer is it, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Now it is, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” Jesus has given to each and every one of us an important, lifelong, critical goal: Love one another with the same lavish love that Jesus has for us!

How is this possible? On our own it is not possible. In fact, on our own it is downright impossible! But, our crucified and risen Savior gives us the power, He gives us the ability, He gives us the motivation to take the lavish love that He showers upon us each and every day and lavish that same love on others!

Is this easy? No, it is not! Satan has other plans for you and for me. When God calls us to repentance, when God grants us forgiveness, when God lavishes His love upon us, when God calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him— Satan is right there to try and lure us down a very different and an eternally destructive path. Satan calls us to focus on the good things we have in this life, to take it easy and to take care of ourselves first and foremost. Satan is trying to lure us back to where we were before God lavished His love upon us. He wants us turned inward on ourselves and our own desires— not on God’s will for us. He wants us to remember our sins— not the love and the forgiveness that God freely grants to us. He wants us to choose— using our own criteria— who deserves our love and who does not. This strategy very often results in choosing to love the people that we think can benefit us the most and if they don’t live up to our expectations we become even more stingy, cold and self-centered. Eventually we end up wondering why life seems so boring, so meaningless and so exhausting.

To overcome Satan’s destructive strategy our crucified and risen Lord comes to us in His holy Word and in His holy Supper and He says to us, “My dear children, stay focused on the love that I have lavished on you! Stay focused on My example of living a life of lavish love for others! Whenever you come across someone who seems ‘unlovable,’ remember that even when you were My spiritual enemy, even when you wanted nothing to do with Me, I loved you this much! (Pointing to the cross) Remember that even though you have sinned against Me in countless ways and at countless times, My love for you always leads Me to forgive you. Remember the depth of My love for you so that you can always remember why I gave you My “new, unheard of” command: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”

When you and I look around in our world today we see people who are living truly lavish lives. They wear designer clothes. They live in a luxurious house. They drive expensive cars. They travel to exotic places. They literally have more money than they could ever spend. When we see someone who is living such a lavish life, our old sinful nature automatically says, “I wish that were me! I want to have that kind of a lavish life!” That’s when we need to remember that if their lavish life consists of merely outward things like clothes and cars, homes and travel, when their lavish life is over— it’s over! Eternally!

The ”new, unheard of” command that our crucified and risen Savior has given to us leads us to daily lift up our eyes to His cross and see that the guide, the standard, the goal that we are to have in our lives as His disciples is to love one another with the same self-sacrificing unconditional love that He has for us! When we embrace that standard, that guide, that goal, that is what people will see when they look at us. That is what people will remember about us— even when we are gone. Far more important and far more impressive than living a lavish life that is built around the temporary the things of this temporary world is living the kind of lavish life that leads people to say about us, “I never met a person who was filled with as much love as (fill in your name).

My prayer this morning is that on this Fifth Sunday of Easter we will all take this opportunity to re-dedicate ourselves to this truth: Because He Lives— We Live Lives of Lavish Love!

To God be the glory!

Amen