Have you ever noticed in magazine ads and TV commercials how often the word "NEW" is used? New products - new models – new features. Everything is "new and improved" – even if that means a new package with less product inside. Just once I'd like to see a commercial describe its product as "old and degraded!"

 

We hear it so often that we are supposed to conclude that new must be better. And yet in fact we find too often that "new and improved" is just an empty claim.

 

But before we get too skeptical about claims of newness, we should remember that the term “new” by itself is neutral. It’s not necessarily positive or negative. So we need to look closely at what is new and why---because being new is an important concept in the Christian faith. 

 

When we talk about newness in relationship to faith we are not talking about superficial improvements or cosmetic changes meant only to catch the public's eye. Being new in the Christian sense of the word refers to its deepest meanings - fullness - change for the best - lasting improvement - something which makes a real difference.

 

Tonight our text from John’s gospel tells us of the new commandment we have from Christ. 

 

" A new command I give you:   Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. " John 13:34

 

In this section of John we hear that the simple act of washing feet--usually performed by servants or slaves--becomes a powerful sign that Jesus is a servant to all people---just as we must serve all people.

 

God takes what IS and gives it new significance.

That’s how it often is with God's new things. They are not new in the sense that inventions or ideas are new. They are old things made new through God's creating and renewing love.

 

And so we have a new command to love. The newness of this command is that the love Christ requires of His disciples is to be the same kind with which He has loved them. It is to be the kind of love that will reverse the roles and bring the leader to serve as a slave - and the powerful to serve as the weak. It will be a love that, like Christ's love for us, does not ask questions about worthiness but simply gives itself in humble service.

 

It makes me think of the love required in a fairy tale where a kiss is needed to transform some ugly creature. That’s what love of God is like - loving the unlovable.

 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ proclaims things that are made new--- Changes made possible by God's love. But that newness becomes effective and active in our obedience to the new command to love others as God has loved us. 

 

That is the challenge. Not simply to love as we always have - family - friends - those who return our love. God wants to make our love new and have it reach all types of people. The outcast - the person who is impossible to get along with - the person with different political views from yours - the troubled youth.

 

God wants our comfortable love to expand and grow to include all people. To become the kind of new love that we have seen demonstrated in Christ. Love which turns the world around.

 

Our old love can grow and change and become something new in Christ.

 

Jesus said "A new command I give you:   Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

 

It is that commandment or “mandate” given by Jesus to his disciples on the night before he died which gives us the traditional name for this day --- Maundy Thursday.

 

And beyond this new commandment from Christ, newness is a part of many Christian concepts. 

 

Baptism is our new birth through Christ.

 

Through God's forgiveness we are given a new start on life with the opportunity to leave the past behind. 

 

We are given the new covenant by God, the new relationship with God, established in the person of Jesus Christ.

 

In short - life as Christians is a life full of newness which is a gift from God.

 

God often takes what already is present in our lives and makes it new.

 

But the newness that is ours from God is not usually made up of new things ---rather it is made up of things made new by God. God takes what already IS, in our lives and makes it new. He enables us to see life in a new way.

 

I was at a seminar once where the speaker was talking about the need to see the same old things in new ways. So he took a hardboiled egg and asked for volunteers to try to make it stand on one end. Several people tried with no luck. He said that you need to look at this challenge with new eyes. And so he took the egg, crushed the shell a little on one end so it was flat and stood the egg up on the table. We need to see life through the new eyes of Christ to see new possibilities.

 

The new commandment - to love - is an example. To love one another is really an old commandment. The Old Testament repeatedly stresses it and it was a central part of Jewish teaching. Moses said, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18). But the commandment is made new, intensified and given new weight through the example of God's love in Christ. 

 

The command to love was new because Jesus gave it a new standard.  Jesus said the new standard is “to love as I have loved you.”  Jesus gave His disciples the example of love that they were to follow. We are to love each other as Christ has loved us. And so the new commandment brings new dimensions to the idea of love.

 

God takes what already IS and gives it new meaning. 

On Maundy Thursday, Jesus took the bread and wine of Passover and gave them new meaning. We saw that demonstrated so powerfully last week by Ofer Levy from Jews for Jesus. He explained the Jewish Passover customs but then showed the Christian symbolism that is there if we have the new eyes to see it. In the Passover for example, the matza, the unleavened bread, is broken, hidden and then brought back later—a striking connection because Jesus took that bread of Passover and said this is my body. His body was broken as he died on the cross, his body was hidden in the tomb, and then he was brought back to life on Easter. Ancient practices given new meaning.

 

A customary Jewish meal shared among Jesus and His disciples becomes an eternal sign that Christ is with us. And so we share that same meal tonight.

 

Earthly things like bread and wine are no longer simply the end products of wheat and grapes - they take on new meaning as signs of God's exceptional love for us. For you young people receiving your first communion tonight, you’ve learned about how this meal is not just a little something to eat and drink. It’s not enough to hold your physical hunger and thirst for very long. But it is a spiritual meal that completely fills us with strength for the journey of life and gives us the certain promise that whenever we turn to him, the Lord is always there to give us the gift of his forgiveness.

 

At that Last Supper that Jesus shared with his disciples before he was crucified, he gave them a whole new way to look at a meal that they had experienced many times before. Old things given new purpose.

 

Our church in Pennsylvania was an historic building built in 1829. The craftsmanship of that day was amazing and the stone building has stood firm for 180 years. But in recent years the wooden steeple started to show signs of needing work. The architect who looked at it, saw that it was still basically solid but that several of the original beams had been damaged by beetles that bore into the wood. The historic preservation grant that the church got required that the original materials be maintained as much as possible. And so instead of putting in new timbers, a new kind of epoxy was found that would infiltrate the beetle holes and then harden, making the beams more solid than ever. The old wood was given strength by the new epoxy and the result was the old becoming new.

 

As in the renovation of an old steeple---

 

The most important events in our lives are often not completely new but are the result of the Lord leading us to new insights or new approaches to old situations.

 

This doesn’t mean that God creates new truth which contradicts the old. God's truth will always be true. But we can learn to apply the same ancient truths in new situations and new ways.

 

New life comes from seeing our same old predicaments in a new light. New possibilities - newly recognized talents - new solutions.

The effectiveness of a counselor in bringing new life to a hopeless situation rests in his or her enabling the people involved to recognize how they can take their old unsuccessful ways of living and transform them into productive patterns for life. The counselor helps things to become new again.

 

The Life’s Healing Choices sermon series and small groups were based on seeing our old hurts and habits in new ways that can lead us to healing. 

 

The same principles apply to reading the Bible. We may read the same Bible verses time and again. But it is in reading the words once more that the Holy Spirit can bring new insights and new applications for those words so that the Word of God becomes new each time we hear it.

 

Life is not so much a series of new things as it is a process of having what already is there - become renewed and revitalized.

 

What old dilemmas are you experiencing? What old perspectives do you need to change? The Good News of this night is that Christ makes the old become new. He can heal damaged relationships with the people around us. He can correct a distorted image that we have of ourselves. He can transform a hopeless view of life.

 

Tonight particularly we are called to look at how our concept of love can become new and alive.

 

We have heard the new command of love which Christ brings us. A love which is symbolized by masters becoming servants and the greatest becoming the least. A love which calls for humble service and yet has the power to give new life.

 

As we consider tonight Jesus' command to love one another in the same way He has loved us, we have presented to us the chance for lives made new.

 

As we share in the sacrament, hear the Word of God and join in fellowship with each other, we receive the love of Christ which brings newness.

 

The love of God offers us new solutions for nagging questions and problems. It brings new hope out of weariness. It takes old tired lives and makes them new. God's love which makes newness possible for your life is present here and now.

 

Accepting that love ourselves though is not the end. As we have been loved, so we should love others

 

Knowing the love of Christ freely given, we can pass that on to others who are trapped in life. Trapped by themselves, trapped by others, trapped by the world. There are so many who need the new lives that Christ's love can bring. You’ve heard it said that God loves us just as we are, but he loves us too much to leave us that way.

 

In following the new command - we are the messengers through whom God makes things new for other people.

 

Our efforts at bringing love into lonely lives - to those who have been rejected by the world - even to those who seem on the surface to be successful at life - these efforts will make the difference for people who trudge through the same old dreary paths of life. The love of Christ embodied in us - can make their lives new. It is not the empty newness we hear shouted on TV ads. It is an authentic renewal of life made possible only when the love of Christ is brought to them face to face.

 

Some years ago there was an American church leader who visited China and he was talking with a group of Chinese pastors, He knew that in China there are many religions and that Christians are a minority. So he asked the Chinese pastors what it was that won them to Christ.

 

In a quiet, faltering voice, the oldest one of those Chinese pastors told the story of how the night before Jesus was to die, he took a towel, knelt down and washed his disciples' feet. He told how in complete humility the Lord had lowered himself and become a servant to his people.

 

The Chinese pastor finished by saying, "Such a thing we had never seen in any religion before. That's when we knew we must follow Christ."

 

The love of Christ makes all things new - for us and for those with whom we share that love.

 

Amen.