CANON Dagmar Winter, Rector of Hexham, comments on

John 13v31–35.

THE final verses of this Sunday’s Gospel are really well known and take us back to the events of Maundy Thursday. Jesus and his friends have shared a meal, then he washes their feet, and Judas has gone out into the dark to betray him.

All this precedes Jesus telling them: “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Easier said than done, I hear you muse. We can all easily think of 53 different examples where church communities have failed to be known by their love for one another, or a similar number of examples where we ourselves have failed in the same way. So the Gospel is a nice ideal, let’s move on! -? But wait. We shouldn’t let the failings allow us to forget the instances where church communities or we ourselves do show such love. Which examples can you think of?

Week by week, churches are there to come together to give thanks for the big and small instances where love has been shown, to encourage more, and to pray for the instances when love was absent. Week by week, churches are there to remind us that ultimately, nothing else but this love matters which issues from God. It’s at the heart of the Easter message which we continue to celebrate this Easter season, for Jesus says in this Sunday’s Gospel on the way to the cross: “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” It proved to be a new beginning. Alleluia.