The Way of Christ-like Love

Over the season of Lent, groups of people from our parish explored what the gospel readings for the coming week can teach us about following Jesus in the way of Christ-like love. We did this by asking what each Bible reading teaches us about God’s love for us in Jesus, trusting God’s love for us, and loving others in the same way.

As we celebrate Easter, we can see where the way of Christ-like love leads us as we witness Jesus loving his followers by serving us, sacrificing for us, and raising us to new life.

Maundy Thursday: Service

At the Last Supper, Jesus showed his love for his disciples by serving them in two main ways: washing their feet and giving them a meal to signify the new covenant between us and God.

By washing his disciples’ feet (John 13:1-17), Jesus showed that he came not to be served, but to serve (Matthew 20:24-28; Mark 10:42-45). His actions help us understand the purpose of Jesus’ life and the reason he came. Jesus was welcomed by the crowds in Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as their king. He showed us God’s love for us by being a king who doesn’t boss us around, tell us what to do or burden us with demands or expectations. He is a king who uses his authority and power to serve us in humility and weakness.

Jesus ultimately served all humanity by giving his life for us on the cross. He continues to serve us by giving his resurrection life to us in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. In saying ‘This is my body … This is my blood’ Jesus promises to meet us in our lives and serve us by filling us with all his divine goodness and righteousness. Holy Communion is our Lord and King’s promise to meet us in our lives and serve us with whatever we need through his grace so we can live for him and follow him in faith, hope and love.

Just like Jesus served his disciples and continues to serve us, living in the way of Christ-like love means that we learn to trust that he will always serve us as we serve one another. It’s easy for us to want to get our way in our relationships with each other, to place expectations on each other, and tell others what we think they should do. Jesus serving us gives us a radically different way to live: not expecting others to do things for us, but to be willing to do what we can for other people so they can encounter the serving nature of our King in us.

Good Friday: Sacrifice

We witness the full extent of God’s serving love for us on Good Friday when Jesus went to the cross and gave his life for all people. One of the main ways to understand Jesus’ death is as a sacrifice for our sin. From Old Testament times, God’s people would bring animals to the Tabernacle and then the Temple in Jerusalem to offer them as sacrifices. They believed that these sacrifices would free them from the guilt of their sin because the animal would take the punishment the people deserved and pay the price of their sin through their death.

When John the Baptist called Jesus ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29) he was pointing to Jesus whose sacrificial death would free all people from the guilt of our wrongs and the penalty of death. We can also understand Jesus’ sacrificial death in a broader way. In the Books of Moses, God didn’t just command sacrifices to forgive sin but for other aspects of life as well. We can understand a sacrifice, then, as anything we give out of love for another. This leads us to a broader understanding Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross as the ultimate expression of God’s love for us (Romans 5:8; 1 John 4:9,10). When Jesus gave all of himself for us by sacrificing his life on the cross, he showed us how wide, how long, how high and how deep God’s love is for us (Ephesians 3:18,19).

Following in the way of Christ-like love means firstly trusting Jesus self-sacrificing love for us. We find a new and better way of understanding who we are, what we’re worth and what life is all about by trusting that Jesus sacrificed everything out of love for us. Faith in Jesus’ self-sacrificing love for us also gives us a better way to live as he teaches us to follow him in loving others the same way. It cost Jesus everything when he went to the cross. When we live in the way of Christ-like, self-sacrificing love, it will also cost us as we focus on what we give to others to bless, help and serve them. When live in this way, trusting in what Jesus sacrificed out of love for us, then other people encounter his self-sacrificing love through us.

Easter Sunday: Resurrection

Following in the way of serving, self-sacrificing love leads us into a new and better life. As we celebrate the resurrection of Jesus and his victory over sin, death and the power of evil on Easter Sunday, we see the destination that Jesus has for us when we follow the way of Christ-like love in which he leads us. Knowing our destination can help us with any journey, and in his resurrection, Jesus shows us the destination towards which he is leading us.

Jesus’ resurrection displays the power of God’s love for us. While Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross showed us the extremes of God’s love, his resurrection shows us that his love for us is stronger than death. Jesus was raised from the grave through the love of his Father. This is the same love that our heavenly Father is working in us by raising us to new life with Jesus. Paul prays in Ephesians 1:19,20 that all of God’s people, including us, would know the resurrection power of Jesus. This resurrection love raises us up when we are down and gives us strength to keep going when we are weak or want to give up. This love brings light into the dark places of our lives and gives us hope when everything seems hopeless.

We find the resurrection power of Jesus’ love in our lives by trusting him and following the way of Christ-like love through serving and sacrificing for others. Paul writes in Philippians 3:10,11 that he wanted to experience the power of Jesus’ resurrection, but he knew that he would only find that power by suffering with him and sharing in his death. The good news is that living in the way of Christ-like love leads us into Jesus’ resurrection life in this world and in eternity. We find it through serving others, sacrificing for others and suffering with and for others. God gives us plenty of opportunities every day to live in the way of Christ-like love by serving the people around us and loving them in self-sacrificing ways. We can live like this in hope and joy, sure in the faith that as we follow in the way of Christ-like love, he will fill us with resurrection power and bring us to full and abundant lives, overflowing with the goodness of God, which will last forever.

As we celebrate Easter, Jesus invites us to follow him by living in the way of Christ-like love. This means trusting in his love for us which serves us, sacrifices everything for us, and fills us with love that is stronger than death. It also means serving others in self-sacrificing love so the people in our lives can encounter and experience Christ’s love for them in and through us. When we follow Jesus by living for others in Christ-like ways, God fills us with the resurrection power of Jesus and will bring us to our destination: the resurrection life.