JANUARY 8, 2026 – LOVE

READ: Jn. 13:31–38: … Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him … if you have love for one another …

By sending Judas away, the Lord Jesus sets in motion His own path to death. The Sanhedrin, enraged because of Lazarus’s resurrection, already wants to kill Him. Now Judas will assist them.

Remarkably, Jesus does not show fear or disappointment. He sees that the end of His earthly task has come. It is the path He must and wants to take, and now the decisive stage has begun toward His death and resurrection. There is no uncertainty: “Now the Son of Man is glorified, and God is glorified in Him.”

John has already called Jesus’s glory “full of grace and truth” (1:14). Such glory is revealed when He lays down His life for His own, and takes it again (10:18). Through this path, Father and Son glorify one another (cf. 17:1). Jesus has always pointed to His Father. They are one, also in the salvation of mankind and creation.

In verse 33 Jesus tells His disciples (His dear children) that He is going to leave them: He will depart to the Father. Only later, after death, will they also go there as His children (v.36).

But when He is no longer with them—definitively after His ascension—they must show mutual love and build one another up in the faith that works through love. The disciples have shown so much discord in recent days. How will it go when Jesus is no longer with them?

We hear here a powerful call that must also be answered by us in true unity of faith. True unity sends a testimony of Jesus to the world (v.35). Diversity of churches, where those who belong together remain divided, hinders this testimony.

Peter struggles with Jesus’s words that He will leave them. Understandably so. Yet Peter boasts too highly of himself: I will lay down my life for You! But Jesus rebukes him strongly: You will deny Me three times.

How is our mutual love within the church?
Sing: Ps. 122:2