On Thursday of Holy Week, Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his disciples. It is traditionally known as “Maundy Thursday.” The word “Maundy” is derived from the Latin “mandatum” which refers to the “commandment” that our Lord gave to His disciples “to love one another.”
“My children…A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
We see the tenderness of Jesus displayed as he addresses his disciples as his children. For Jesus, they belonged in his kingdom. Therefore, our Lord had to protect them from what was ahead. What was ahead was something only Jesus could undergo.
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“Where I am going, you cannot come,” Jesus said.
The Lord gives them this new commandment to hold on to as they continue kingdom work. But why is this a new commandment? Didn’t Moses already give us this imperative in Leviticus 19:18 when he said, “to love your neighbor as yourself?” Indeed. However, this new commandment is unlike Leviticus. In John’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Love one another, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” The difference is God became flesh and loved his disciples for three years.
The disciples now have the example of God in the flesh of what love truly looks like. Yes, it is a new commandment: Love one another. But when Jesus says, “Do this,” it is because he has already demonstrated to us what it looks like.
Love is the center of Christian discipleship. How will the world know who we are? It should not be because of our intellectual expertise or our professional accomplishments but rather by the love we have for one another at our tables, living rooms, workplaces, and in the place of worship.
Christian history triumphed because God has loved us in his Son, and Christians have reacted to that love by loving one another. Without love, there is no Christian faith; without love, we are noise-makers, clanging cymbals, and self-delusional religionists, but when we obey this new commandment, the world sees us, and they will know that we are disciples of the Crucified King, Jesus Christ.
Prayer: O Lord, of heaven and earth, we are undeserving of such love, yet, you love us still without hesitation. We are your disciples and pray that your love would overflow in our hearts so that we might display this love to those around us by listening, cherishing, serving and encouraging our neighbor in the Name of Jesus Christ, amen.
Notations
Brock and Sutanto’s introduction to Kuyperianism argue that “historic neo-Calvinism was a Dutch enterprise for the sake of the whole church under the theological minds of Kuyper and Bavinck that included at its core an immense ecclesiological movement, a return to the fathers and to the catholic, confessional faith in a modernist context” (5). They spend their introduction correcting various misconceptions of Neo-Calvinism. Among them is the assertion that it is some form of transformationalism that views the church as a social project (4). I am always grateful to engage new Kuyperian works and thankful to Lexham Press for sending me a copy of this work.
One proposal for I Corinthians 11 is that Paul is making an argument for absurdity on headcoverings. In 11:6 he says that women should wear headcovering before prophesying. But we know that in 14:34 he says that a woman should stay quiet in the assembly. So why would Paul argue for speech in 11 when he knows that a woman cannot assume a liturgical role in 14? The answer may be that for Paul the argument for liturgical distinctions between male and female are so clear that a woman would have to go through the absurdity of playing the role of a priest—covering her head—in order to act like one. But since she can’t, she should be satisfied with her natural hair as a clear distinguishing feature.
According to my dear friend, Scott Aniol, Baptist theology is incongruent with any idea of Christendom. Scott notes that historic Baptist theology must always desire a separation between the state and the church. But Christian nationalists of different varieties argue that Church and State relationships are harmonious if Christ is ruler over all. While spheres have different roles, they must engage one another for the good of the society. I favor the Christendom party arguing strongly for triple commitments from family, state, and church in the application of goodness, beauty, and truth derived from Holy Scriptures.
Hearing Covenant Presbyterian (PCA) singing the doxology after several of their staff and members died in the shooting in Nashville, TN is quite moving. As Joel Berry notes, the trans community will never “achieve peace like this.”
Thank you so much for these wonderful Lenten Devotionals! Thank you so much for sharing the Doxology sung at Covenant Presbyterian Church. This is so powerful and beautiful to the praise and glory of our Lord!!!
Thank you so much for these wonderful Lenten Devotionals! Thank you so much for sharing the Doxology sung at Covenant Presbyterian Church. This is so powerful and beautiful to the praise and glory of our Lord!!!