"If you really love me, you will keep my commandments"
Rev. Marcel Divine Emeka Okwara CSsR
Homily for 6th Sunday of Easter, Year A
Holy Names of Jesus & Mary Catholic Church
May 29, 2011
In John 14:15, Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments, and I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth.”
In John 15: 14, Jesus again says, “You are my friends if you do what I command.”
In John 14: 21, Jesus says, “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”
In John 14: 9-11, Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
Dearest beloved, today’s gospel taking from John 14:15-21 is a continuation of Jesus’ farewell speech to his disciples. In this speech, the Lord makes a connection between love and obedience. He says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” I once told a friend that in a traditional African society, people hardly say, “I love you.” Even those in marriage do not say that. Then my friend asked me, “Then how do you know that someone loves you?” I replied, “You know by the way they treat you.”
To Jesus, the best test of love is obedience. Remember, it was through his obedience that he demonstrated his love for his Father; and it is by our obedience that we must demonstrate our love for him. To Jesus, love is not just a sentiment or emotion. It is rather an expression that is always moral demonstrated through obedience. Put differently, love is a moral expression revealed in obedience. We know there are people who profess their love in words but who, at the same time, bring pain, misfortune, and heartbreak to the same people they claim to love. There are young people who say they love their parents, yet, they cause them sorrow, anxiety and sleeplessness. There are husbands who say they love their wives and wives who say they love their husbands, and who, at the same time, through their inconsideration, irritability and thoughtless unkindness bring pain and grief to the very one they claim to love. To Jesus, love is not an easy thing easily professed in words. Love is a reality demonstrated only in true obedience, faithfulness and good deeds.
The Lord asks no small thing from his disciples when he said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Keeping the Lord’s commandments is not going to be easy for anybody. Being a Christian and following Jesus’ teachings is a struggle. To be a disciple of Jesus means “to follow after him." It means following the way of Jesus who is the Way; it means keeping and living the truth of Jesus who is the Truth; it also means accepting the life of Jesus who is the Life. To love Jesus means to take seriously what he took seriously. Following Jesus entails striving to imitate him.
“If you really love me, then you will keep my commandment.” What do we do to those we love? We try to have their best interest in mind; we try to please them; we try to avoid anything that is capable of destroying or disrupting our relationship with them. We try to visit them often or call them on the phone regularly. To those we love, we cherish. To those we love, we please. To those we love, we keep. We keep them and keep their rules. That’s what Jesus expects from us. If we really love him, we will cherish him above all else. If we really love him, we will always strive to please him by being obedient to him. If we really love Jesus, we will keep him in our hearts and thoughts by keeping his commandments. If we really love the Lord, we will keep in touch and in contact with him by visiting and calling him in prayer.
The Lord says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” But does this mean that every time we sin we do not love him? Although we love Jesus, but any time we commit sin we love something or someone else more than we love Jesus. If we love Jesus more than anything else, we will keep free from sin for the sake of him. We will strive to give ourselves totally to him. And when we love Jesus with all our heart, soul, mind and strength we will not want to put anything, no matter how small before Jesus. Loving Jesus is not just an emotional feeling. It is something deeper and greater than that. Loving Jesus means changing our lives, our lifestyles, reforming our lives, working on our personalities and characters, stretching ourselves to love him. Loving Jesus is putting Jesus first, second and third before anything or anybody. Loving Jesus is making daily efforts to overcome any form of sin no matter how small it is. If we love Jesus truly, we will be working everyday to eliminate all sins. Galatians 5:24 say, “Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.”
The command to love Jesus by keeping his commandments is not an easy task. Anyone who tells you it is easy is probably not observing it. It is difficult. Jesus knows it is going to be a struggle, hence, he promised to send us the Holy Spirit: “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows him. But you know him, because he remains with you, and will be in you.” Jesus knows that keeping his commandments is not going to be an easy ride for us. Hence, he promised, “I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.”
To those who are honestly willing to love the Lord by keeping his commandments, Jesus promised to send help. He is not leaving us all alone by ourselves. He promised to send the parakletos. The parakletos is the Holy Spirit. The word parakletos has other meanings, but in this case, it means someone called in to help in time of trouble or need. The parakletos is the Advocate, the Comforter, and the Helper. Because the Lord has set a hard and difficult task before us, he therefore sends someone, the parakletos who will always help us to obey his commands. The world will not recognize the Spirit because the world does not know him. But we know him as the one that helps us to keep the commandments of Jesus Christ.
To those who are sincerely willing to love the Lord through the keeping of his commandments, Jesus again promised to give the gift of hope. The gift of hope is one of the greatest gifts a human person can know. Even in the worst of times, we are not defeated if we have hope. Nothing is more devastating as hopelessness. In spite of the horrors, wars and rumors of wars, Jesus promised us, “I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” Though the world may not see me, “But you will see me, because I live , you will live.” What other promise is greater than this? Jesus promises never to leave us alone. No matter what you face, Jesus is not leaving you alone. In fact, he said, “I am coming to you.” No matter what may happen, no experience or power can take away the hope we have in Christ Jesus. Even death cannot separate us from the love of Christ.
If we keep his commandments, if we care for each other the way he cares for us, we shall never be without hope. Loving those who hate you will not make sense in the world out there. Some people might even think that you are wimp for loving people who don’t love you back. But remember that our Lord was on top of this very thing. He loved both friends and foes, and even forgave his foes who crucified him. The greatest gospel was preached on the cross. Jesus was the one who preached that gospel.
Another promise of the Lord to those who will love him is intimacy: “On that day, you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.”
Dearest beloved, what else is greater than this? If we love Jesus, we will enter into intimacy with him and his Father. Keeping the Lord’s commandments is a demonstration of our love for him. And because we love him, the Father will also love us; Jesus will also love us and then reveal himself to us. This is an intimacy of love that is without any parallel. No evil person can ever receive the revelation of God. He may be used by God, but he can never have any fellowship with him. It is only those who are looking for God that God reveals self to. And it is only the person who, in spite of failure, is constantly reaching up to God that God reaches down for. To have fellowship with God and to have intimacy with him is contingent on love; and love is contingent on obedience. The more we love God, the more we obey him, and the more we understand him. The one who truly loves the Lord will surely keep his commandments. If you really love Jesus, then keep his commandments. Keep his commandments that your joy may be full!
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