What kind of love is this?

Having washed the feet of his betrayer, Jesus plunges into the depths of love.

What kind of love?

Creating love: the kind that was present when this creation was called into being by the Divine Power.  The kind of love that is manifest when life is called into being, when light enters the void.  It is the foundation of this world and the foundation of the eternal Divine Kingdom.  It is love that works from the bottom up.

It is hard work.

This love is such a powerful force that it can enter the darkness of the tomb, surrounded by the odor of death, and step out risen and alive.  Yes, we think of the tomb that held Jesus but there are thousands of other tombs: tombs of the living who die a little each and every day because they stand in the presence of death and cannot recognize the life giving power of love that beckons to them.


The back of the tomb is God territory: where the most deadly things happen and yet, in God, are never the last word on anything.  There in the back of tomb where humans are convinced that the power of evil has prevailed is the power of God's love - bringing life - bringing light - making a new day.

So we cannot fool ourselves:  loving another into resurrection is backbreaking work.  But it is not our backs that it breaks, but rather, it breaks the back of racial prejudice and superiority.  It breaks the back of poverty and oppression.  It breaks the back of all the categories we use to separate and (de)value one another: categories like sexuality, age, gender, nationality, religion, criminal record.

This powerful resurrection love breaks our fear, which is the tomb that holds us all.  We fear being found out to be frauds, to be unholy, unworthy.  We fear that the ugliness of jealousy and lust and greed will become visible to everyone and in the end no one loves us and there is no way out of this tomb of fear.

Yet Jesus stepped willingly into the tomb.....in absolute certainty that God is God, and God could and would continue to love him....right back into life again.

Loving another into resurrection is back breaking work.  It will kill you.  It will bring you into life again - a life that cannot be taken away.

That's the love that Jesus is talking about.  Love one another.  Just as I have loved you, love one another.

A lifetime of work to bring about a time of life.