"Now before the feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of the world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." John 13:1
I have read and have cherished this verse for many, many years. I have especially needed it lately. It gives us an amazing view into the heart of Christ. When you look into the window of the heart of Christ, at this very moment, what is on His mind towards you is intensive and extensive love.
According to verse 1, it is before the feast of the Passover. It is actually on Thursday night of Passion Week, We are told that Jesus knew what lay ahead of him, that his hour had come to depart from the world to the Father. In the language of John, the time of day was over; night was coming. Everything that was going to happen to Jesus was part of the Father’s plan, and Jesus was in charge. He was not a victim of a group of crazy people. He knew he only had a few more hours with his disciples, and his focus was on his last words and actions for them. Jesus feels this Passover is the divinely appointed time. All through his ministry he knew he was to be the "Lamb of God who would take away the sin of the world," (John 1:29). He also knew this would occur when the nation was gathered to offer the Passover lamb, the feast that was instituted in Egypt as the angel of God's wrath passed over the houses of the Israelites when he saw the lamb's blood upon their doorposts. In that rich and redolent symbolism, our Lord sees himself. The time has also come when he, as the grain of wheat, must fall into the ground and die. He sees, as a result of his death, a great harvest of Jews and Gentiles to follow.
I. WHO JESUS LOVES First, notice whom we loves: “Having loved his own who were in the world... he loved them to the end.”
Who are His own? The answer has been given many times in John's gospel. “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out" (John 6:37) "He calls his own sheep by name and they follow him.” “The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:3, 15, 27). “Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). “I do not pray for these only but for all who will believe on me through their word” (John 17:1). So who are His own? "All that the Father has given Me" “His own.” “His sheep.” “His friends.” “Believers.”
Jesus was moved by an overwhelming sense of love for his disciples. Near and dear, those who belong to Him. Here is something very precious and powerful and life-changing. The love of Jesus for those the Father has given Him, His own, for His sheep, for His friends, for believers is more than the love held out to the world, the compassion that fed the hungry and healed the sick and preached good news to the poor. And in this verse John wants those of us who are “His own,” his gifts, his sheep, his friends to hear something uniquely for us. These are His own beloved bride, His covenant people people. Each one of them, a love gift from the Father. Each one chosen by the Father. Each one a divine expression of affection for the Son. Each one beloved by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Ponder what precious reality there is in the words “his own.” “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”
II. THE LENGTH AND DEPTH OF JESUS' LOVE
Then, finally, ponder the two directions of his love: “having loved… he loved to the end.” We are told that Jesus loved his own in the world to the end. Notice the way that John describes this love. "Having loved" (past tense) ...He loved" (aorist, He was then doing and about to do: love).
The word “end” could be taken several ways: adverbially, meaning “to the uttermost,” or temporally, “to the end of his life or their lives,” or eternally, meaning "to the end of ends" or "without end". In the Greek the word is telos which literally means "perfection". With a knowledge of His coming death, His resurrection, His glory, with the task of sin-bearing on the cross He was still pre-occupied with a totally perfect consuming full love for these of His own disciples. All the way to the cross and all the way through the grave and all the way through eternity He loves them fully, totally, completely, to the uttermost.
There is no word that can better define that kind of love. He loved them to farthest possibility that love could go. That's how He loved them. Jesus loved His very own, loved them perfectly. Jesus had loved his own all along; he now showed them the full extent of his love. In short, in the whole range of Jesus contact with the disciples, He loved them! In John 13:34 He will say, "As I have loved you so you must love..."What a great word of comfort and encouragement, that Jesus will love us too to the very end. Nothing can take us from his care and keeping. “No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand.”
Jesus loved us in life and he loved us in death. Having loved us in the easiest times he loved us in the hardest times. Having loved us with words and bread and touch he loved us with blood and pain and death. Having loved us extensively over years he loved us intensively to the depths.
We are moved to believe that someone loves us when two things appear—they stick with us over time, and they stick with us when it is costly. So this means that Jesus has loved us over the years (patient with all our sin and misunderstanding) and he now loved us to the uttermost, to the depths of suffering for us.
This is what we long for, and this is what we have by faith—an experience of being loved with a love that lasts, that is not fickle, or uncertain, or capricious, but durable, constant, stable.
But not only a love that is extensive, that lasts over time, all time, but also a love that is intensive. We long to be loved radically, deeply, excessively, passionately. Jesus is madly in love with you!And the word tells us, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” It went long and it went deep. Nothing we do, or fail to do, in foolish ignorance, will stop him from loving us unto the end. Paul writes in Romans,"Who is to condemn us? (He asked) Christ Jesus is the one who died, yes, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, “For thy sake we are being killed all the daylong; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:34-39). God is always 100% for those He loves! He may have to discipline us. That is an act of his love. He may bring remarkable experiences into our lives, but we may be sure that underneath all is his loving concern for us.
How important it is for us to remember that. Jude, one of Jesus' brothers, writes, "Keep yourself in the love of God," (Jude 1:21). Paul writes, "May the Lord direct your heart into the love of God" (2 Thessalonians 3:5). God loves you, and out of that love everything he does with you will flow. This is our assurance: Having loved his own, even though he was about to be tortured and to pass into a dark struggle that no man can comprehend, he did not think of himself but only of those whom he loved.
To be loved by Jesus Christ is literally an indescribable thing. It is deeper than any of us knows. And O how Paul wanted us to know the love of Christ the way he knew it! Do you remember how he prayed for us in Ephesians 3:18-19? "… that you might have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God." Paul virtually equated knowing the love of Christ with being filled with the fullness of God. Being loved by Christ means being full of God.
In another place he said, "The love of Christ constrains us" (2 Corinthians 5:14).
Being loved by Christ was the controlling force of his life. When he turned into any wrong way it was the love of Christ that constrained, held him back, and put him in the way of truth. The most unshakable reality of his life was being loved by Jesus Christ. It was the granite foundation under a life of immense suffering. It made Paul utterly indestructible in his confidence toward God.
So I pray that this week you think about being extensively and intensely loved by Jesus Christ. May you have the sense of being loved by Christ that the apostle Paul had and the disciples have. AMEN
Pastor Bill
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