We might consider Jesus’ words to His students (disciples) in the Upper Room as sort of a “Last Will and Testament,” a final summing up of all that He had taught them during His brief ministry among them.  He begins to speak of His coming death not as a probability but as a certainty, and He begins to talk with new urgency as though the passing moments are infinitely precious and as though he wants to etch every word indelibly on the minds of each of them.  And what does He say to them?  “I give you a new commandment, that you love one another.”

We might well ask, “What is new about it?” It certainly is not new in its content, for many centuries before Jesus the prophets told God’s people that they were supposed to love one another.  We also find mention of this commandment in the writing…