My children, I give you a new commandment: love one another. Today’s rather short Gospel Reading comes at the beginning of Jesus’ farewell discourses that were given in the context of the Last Supper. Jesus was aware that the Last Supper was going to be the last big act that he was performing before the scattering of the twelve, and as such he must have intended it to have an august aura. It was the calm before the storm, so to speak, for he was aware of how his arrest and execution were to shake his followers to their core. Consequently, he must have intended the discourses to open the eyes of the twelve not only into what was about to happen, but also into understanding every single act that he had performed in their presence. Serving as a prologue to the discourses, today’s Gospel passage also appear to continue the conversation which had ensued following the earlier act of the washing of the feet. Jesus had used the washing of the feet to visualize for his disciples what their call entailed. The washing of the feet was a summary of everything the disciples had heard and witnessed from their Master. 
Although in its original context the discourses are a farewell speech given before Jesus’ passion and death, today, we read part of it in the context of the resurrection and the events that were to follow. Moreover, the instructions of Jesus contained in the passage are today read and understood in anticipation of the event of the ascension (which will be celebrated in two weeks’ time). Having conquered the powers of darkness and death in his resurrection, Jesus is inviting us – his current disciples - to become part of his glorification. For unless we become part of Jesus’ glorification, we make the passion and death that he underwent to be in vain. Jesus underwent his passion and death in order to restore to glory his brothers and sisters. But for us to be part of Jesus’ glorification, we have to be part of his resurrection (since it is in Jesus’ resurrection that he overcame the powers of darkness). It is to this end that Jesus’ farewell message was directed. 
As Jesus was getting ready to ascend back to the Father, his one wish was that his disciples remain in him. In the several talks that he held with his disciples, he reminded them that his wish for them was that they would always remember him. Now for the three or so years that he spent with his disciples, Jesus did and said a lot with which his disciples could remember him. While the disciples might have been inclined to remember him as a wonder-worker or as a great orator, this is not how Jesus wanted them to remember him. He didn’t want them to limit their remembrance of him as one who had walked on water or as one who had given numerous parables and lengthy teachings. And whereas it is understandable if the disciples had wished to remember him as one who had challenged the religious authorities on both the knowledge and on their living out of the Torah, or as he who had pointed out the hypocrisy of the self-righteous Pharisees and Scribes, Jesus had other ideas. In the few verses that have constituted today’s Gospel reading, it is clear to us that Jesus wants us to remember him above all as one who has loved. Love, both as a noun and as a verb, summarizes Jesus’ entire life and mission. It is out of love that Jesus assumed human nature (Incarnation), and it is out of love that Jesus ended up on the cross. And since Jesus knows that it is only by imitating him that we can keep his memory, he instructs us thus: as I have loved you, so you must love one another. He is instructing us to keep his memory as one whose love has no limits: a love that is blind to race, gender, religion, as well as to social and economic status. 
The love which Jesus requires of us is not a simple one. It is a love which is like no other. He wants us to love each other as he has loved us. The love with which Jesus has loved us has its origins in the Godhead. The three persons in the Godhead exist for, and to love, and the love that comes from therein cannot be contained since it is love in action. It is love that is both reciprocal and altruistic. It is a manner of loving that must be passed on to the next person. Jesus was himself an instrument of love. It is love that gave him his identity. He was begotten out of love, and he couldn’t help but love since he is love incarnate. When he passes that love to us, Jesus expects that we too must become love incarnate. The love which we receive must transform us into love itself. And if we allow that love to transform us, then we will find it easy to love others since that love which has made a dwelling inside us will always seek the other in order to be complete. This is the nature and character of Christian love. 
Loving as Jesus loved is no mean feat. Loving as Jesus loved his own must have no strings attached since it leads to the cross. To love as Jesus did, we must be ready to empty ourselves and live for the other. This is how the world will know that we are Jesus’ disciples: if we have love for one another (cf. John 13:35).