TEXT: JOHN 13:34-35 (CSB) – ““I give you a new command: Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
We will begin to look at three characteristics of Jesus’ love. First of all, His love is characterized by ACTION not FEELING. Another characteristic of Jesus' love is that it is INCLUSIVE…not SELECTIVE. The final characteristic we will consider is that Jesus’ love is a SACRIFICIAL, SELFLESS love.
In other words, God acts in love for everyone-even when it COSTS Him to do so. As I John 4:10 says, God LOVED us and “…sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”
In his classic book, THE BODY, Charles Colson tells the true story of Father Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish monk who was imprisoned in Auschwitz by the Nazis in WWII.
Father Kolbe was subjected to years of tortuous manual labor yet he was a constant source of Godly love and encouragement to his fellow prisoners. One July night a couple years after his imprisonment, the camp air was suddenly filled with the baying of dogs, the curses of soldiers, and the roar of motorcycles. A man had escaped from Barracks 14 — Father Kolbe’s barracks.
The next morning there was a peculiar tension as the ranks of phantom-thin prisoners lined up for morning roll call in the central square. You see, the escapee had not been caught and that meant death for some of those who remained.
All prisoners in the camp, except for those in Barracks 14, were dismissed. They were ordered to wait, standing at attention as the summer sun beat down upon them. Some fainted and were dragged away. Some swayed in place but held on only to be beaten by the butts of the SS officers’ guns.
Father Kolbe, by some miracle, stayed on his feet, his posture as straight as his resolve. He and his fellow inmates were forced to stand without rest or food all day. By evening roll call the commandant was ready to levy sentence. He screamed, The prisoner has not been found. Ten of you will die for him in the starvation bunker. The next time this happens 20 will die.” This was a horrible way to die! The gallows-even the gas chambers-were better than this slow agonizing death. After a day or two in this bunker, the condemned didn’t even look like human beings. Their appearance and behavior even scared the guards.
The heat and absence of food and water caused their throats to turn to paper, their brains to turn to fire, their intestines to dry up and shrivel like desiccated worms.
The commandant walked along the rows of prisoners demanding each man to open his mouth so he could see his teeth….choosing victims like horses. Soon there were ten men.
The last man chosen groaned aloud, “My poor wife! My poor children! What will they do?”
Suddenly there was a commotion in the ranks. A prisoner had broken out of line, calling for the commandant. It was unheard of to leave the ranks, let alone address a Nazi officer. To do so was cause for execution on the spot so the commandant grabbed his revolver and, pointing at the prisoner, yelled, “What does this Polish pig want of me?”
The prisoners looked and gasped. It was their beloved Father Kolbe, the priest who shared his last crust of bread, who comforted the dying, who heard their confessions and nourished their souls.
The frail priest spoke softly, even calmly, to the Nazi butcher. “I would like to take the place of one of the men you condemned.” “Why?” snapped the commandant. Kolbe calmly replied, “I am an old man sir, and good for nothing. My life will serve no purpose.”
The commandant asked, “In whose place do you want to die?” “I want to die for that one,” Kolbe responded, pointing to the weeping prisoner who had bemoaned the fate of his wife and children.
The commandant agreed and as Kolbe passed this other prisoner, the man’s face was an expression so astonished that it had not yet become gratitude.
But Kolbe wasn’t looking for gratitude. If he was to lay down his life for another, the fulfillment had to be in the act of obeying God’s command. The joy must be found in submitting his small will to the will of God.
As the hours and days passed, the camp became aware of something extraordinary happening in the death cell. Past prisoners of this starvation bunker had spent their dying days howling, attacking one another, clawing the walls in a frenzy of despair.
But now, those outside heard the faint sounds of singing coming from the bunker. For….this time the prisoners had a shepherd to gently lead them through the shadows of the valley of death, pointing them to the Great Shepherd. And perhaps, for this reason, Father Kolbe was the last to die.
If you were to go to Auschwitz today you would find a perpetual flame burning. It is a flame of remembrance so that we will never forget what happened there in the hopes that Nazi atrocities will never be repeated.
But Colson points out that it is more than that. This flame celebrates the fact that men and women who are enduring even the greatest of horrors can demonstrate the greatest of loves. It is not a monument to Father Maximilian Kolbe alone….hero though he was. It points ultimately to the God/Man, Who laid down His life for us all on the cross…..the Master Who came not to be served but to serve….the only King in history Who died on behalf of His subjects.
You know, after my study of this commandment I have come to two conclusions.
· First of all, I have come to realize just how desperately our world needs the love of Jesus. Hate comes so easily to people these days…stories like the one of two teens gunned down by a peer in the streets are always in the news, hatred based on cultural differences, etc. We need the culture-changing impact of Christians like Father Kolbe who will act in love toward all people even when it is expensive, costly, to do so.
· And secondly I have concluded that we can’t love like this…we can’t obey this commandment or LAW on our own strength. This kind of love must be empowered by God.
This is what Paul was inferring in II Corinthians 3 when he said that God’s law was, “written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts…for we are not competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence [our power] comes from God.”
Today, imagine the impact that we could have if we committed today to love as only Jesus can….to rely on His power so that we will have the strength to always act in love?
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