Easter 6
May 12, 2026
William G. Carter
Jesus says, “If you love me, you will keep my
commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
Advocate, to be with you forever. This is the Spirit of truth, whom the
world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him,
because he abides with you, and he will be in you.”
”I will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you also will live. On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.”
It seemed like such a pleasant little text for Mother’s Day. Jesus speaks of love. Five times in eight sentences. Love, love, love… Fresh from telling us, “I am the Way,” he’s making that way clear to us. His way is the way of love. According to the Gospel of John, Jesus reveals love, even love for a world that doesn’t love him in return. He exemplifies a life of laying ourselves down for one another. “There is no greater love than this,” he teaches.
Yet then if we actually read the text without flinching. Just
listen to how it begins. “If you love me…” Anybody ever say those words to you?
We hear them. We wait for the shoe to drop. There’s a yellow flag signaling
future conditions and iron-clad expectations. “If you love me…” (fill in the
blank).
If you love me, you will
take out the garbage.
If you love me, you will
clean up your mess.
If you love me, you will
remember me at Christmas time.
If you love me, you will
buy me something on my wish list.
If you love me, you will
make a favorite meal for my birthday.
If you love me, you will
phone me once a week.
If you love me, you will
come and visit.
If you love me, really love me, you will come to church with me on Mother’s Day.
If you love me… Hear those words enough times and affection is hardened into obligation. Freedom is chained to responsibility. Joy is demoted to drudgery.
And then comes the full sentence, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Most of us pause to consider that. If we are present today, we see those words circling two stone tablets on the front of the worship bulletin. Keeping the commandments is the fundament moral requirement of faith: worship no other gods, keep Sabbath, don’t murder, covet, or steal – and all the rest. We are commanded to keep them. But to quote Tina Turner, “What’s love got to do with it?”
Let’s face it. Sometimes the Bible teaches conditional love – like most of the book of Deuteronomy. “If you do this, then…” For instance, Deuteronomy 5:16 – “Honor your mother (and father, too), so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you…” That is, honor your mother, followed by an implicit “or else.”
This is one of the venerable ways for scripture to keep people in line. “Do this and live.”
The difficulty is that sometimes we can do what is commanded and life may not turn out as we’ve been told. There are people who never smoked, but contracted lung cancer. There are some who kept to the straight and narrow, yet their lives came to ruin. In fact, some cared for their parents even when the road was difficult; and it did not go well with them. It seems that old Deuteronomic “do this and live” formula is not as airtight as it promises.
But remember this: our text does not come from Deuteronomy, but from the Gospel of John. This is the book where faithful Jews ask Jesus, “Who sinned, in order that a man was born without his sight?” They assume causality. They believe in consequence, but Jesus doesn’t go there. He knows what you and I know. Sometimes tough things just happen.
So, I went back for a second look at what John is telling us about Jesus. And I had a little help from a Bible scholar named Dale Bruner, who had two things to add.[1]
Here is the first: our text has been translated poorly into English. We think it says, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” What it should say is “When all of you love me, you will be keeping these commands of mine.” The grammar in Greek is not “if” but “when.” So, cancel all those notions of condition and consequence. Jesus speaks to those who will be loving him. Rather than an obligation, he offers an invitation: “When you love me…” That’s a gentler way to say, “If you love me.”
Next, if we follow up on that invitation to love him, we are not keeping the Ten Commandments. Nor are we keeping the 613 commandments of the Jewish Bible. We are keeping his commandments. Or as the original text put it, “these commandments of mine.”
So, pause for a minute to ask which commandments are his? You can probably think of one. He says, “This is my new commandment, to love one another.” (13:34) Of course – when we love him, we will love one another.
But are there other commands, especially in the Gospel of John? Dale Bruner says, “Yes, there’s one more. And it’s Christ’s first command. We skipped over it in the chapter before this one.” That’s the foot-washing chapter, chapter 13. Jesus says to Simon Peter, and then to us, “Unless I wash you, you won’t have a part of me.” Bruner says this is the Gospel in a short sentence, namely this: “Let me wash you. Let me forgive you. Let me love you.” Christ offers a cleansing that is pure grace. It’s his gift, and he commands Simon and the rest of us to receive it.
Dr. Bruner says it this way: “Forgiveness of sins will be the foundation of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ – constantly – or there will never be a firm foundation or good relation with Jesus Christ or with his Father… This is hard on our pride, but it is medicine for your soul.”[2]
So, Jesus says, “When you love me, you will keep these commands of mine.” Commandment One: we let him love us with the soapsuds of forgiveness and grace. Commandment Two: we love one another as he loves us – presumably, with forgiveness and grace. Love flows from him through us. That’s the Christ life. That’s the way to walk.
Just as soon as he says it, more promises swirl as a
spiral around us:
They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me;
and those who love me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love them and reveal myself to them.
Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them,
and we will come to them and make our home with them.
Whoever does not love me does not keep my words;
and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
It’s a lot to take in, a verbal tornado, yet the key to it all is this: the love of God is a gift for us all. God sent Jesus to show love, to be love, to offer love, and to command love. According to the Gospel of John, if you love, you are part of Christ’s life, his risen, abiding life.
He demands no further obligation from us, does not require us to do something we are unable to do, and he never asks us to be religious, pious, or reputable. Neither does he expect us to figure out the mysteries of heaven nor the deep questions of earth. He doesn’t tell us how many candles to light, nor does he shake us upside down until all the quarters fall out of our pockets.
All Jesus commands of us is to let him love us, and then to stay with that love until we love one another. For Jesus, it is a matter of presence. “Stick with me,” he says. “Stay with me.” Dwell with me. Abide with me. One verb after another, all pointing to the same life-giving reality. We welcome Christ within us, among us. We welcome his presence, in the power of his ever-present Spirit. That’s the gift. That’s the promise.
To illustrate, I draw on an old family story. It’s a lesson from, of all places, my mother. I grew up as the first-born child in my family. Naturally, I was certain that came with certain privileges. When my sister came along, I was taller. I was stronger. I was sure I was far better looking. And so on and so forth.
Sister Debbie, eighteen months younger, resembled the Biblical character of Jacob. Remember him? He was the twin brother of Esau, born just a few minutes later. When he came out of the womb, he was grabbing the heel of his big brother. Years ago, sister Debbie was no twin, but she was always grabbing my heel.
I was good at math. She had to be better. I took piano lessons. She worked harder, a much better musician than me. I was an exemplary student. She got better grades. She bugged me. And she hated the fact that she’d start a new year in school and the teachers would say, “Oh, we know your older brother. Are you going to be great student like him?” She would grind her teeth, then do everything she could to surpass me.
So, you can expect that there were occasions when we would bump heads. Good, old fashioned sibling rivalry. If you were an only child, you don’t know what you were missing. Many times, our mother would have to separate us. She would have to pull us off one another, sending one to a chair over there, another to a chair over here. Then came the maternal wisdom. “Are you angry with one another?” Yes! “Really angry?” Yes!
“OK, here is your punishment,” she said. “You are going to sit in those two chairs until I say so. You are required to look at one another. You are not allowed to say a word. You are not allowed to smile. You are not allowed to laugh. You are not allowed to make a peep. Got it? Now, start staring at one another.” She walked out of the room.
The punishment was so ridiculous. It was ridiculous. We both knew it. But there we were, glowering, scowling, grimacing, frowning, scrunching up our faces, sticking out our tongues. I would snicker. Mom’s voice came in from the next room. “I said, not a word!” Deb would grin. Mom, again, “No smiling.” And pretty soon, we were both laughing.
And here she came. “If the two of you are going to laugh, hug one another and make up.” The magic was this: she wanted us to be present with one another, completely present. And if we are truly connected, love takes over. That’s the promise. It’s a sign of how it is when Christ is present with us. Love takes over. Thanks, Mom!
It’s the promise of Jesus. “When you love me, you will
love one another.” As the Gospel of John, suggests, if we wish we could
believe, we are already believing. If we want to love, we have begun to love.[3] So,
we stay with Christ, we dwell in the love of Christ, and he stays with us, deepening
our love until we discover we are lovable.
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