This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. The Gospel passage we have read today is a continuation of Jesus’ discourse/teaching on the vine and branches that we read last Sunday. The discourse on the vine and branches was part of Jesus’ farewell discourse to his disciples as his passion and death drew closer. Aware that he was going to be separated from them soon, Jesus wanted to remind them of what their three or so years together had been about, and how important it was for the survival of the group (mission/movement). It was a talk that Jesus wanted the disciples to commit to memory and to keep close to their hearts. However, today we read this passage in the context of our preparations for the celebration of the Feast of the Ascension, an event that took place some forty days after Jesus’ resurrection.
Having successfully accomplished the mission that made him assume our creaturely nature, Jesus was ready to ascend back to the Father. From the moment the Holy Spirit descended upon him as he was being baptized in the River Jordan by his cousin John the Baptist, Jesus embarked upon the mission of reconciling creation with God. Through his words and deeds, especially his self-offering on the cross at Calvary, he helped his brothers and sisters to reclaim their place at the side of God as his sons and daughters. Jesus was able to accomplish his mission because of his love for his brothers and sisters. Love is what his entire life and ministry had been about. In today’s Gospel passage, Jesus commands us to follow his example of embodying love and making it our sole mission so that we can be worthy of being referred to as his disciples.
Love was the reason for Jesus’ mission. It was the love he has for creation that saw him assume a creaturely nature, make his dwelling amongst his creatures, willingly take upon himself the cross, and stretch out his hands on the cross to die. Throughout his three or so years of ministry, love was the song that Jesus’ sang. It was thus fitting that as he prepared to take leave of the group that he had gathered about himself, he made sure that they fully understood what was expected of them. Jesus had demonstrated to the disciples what will be expected of them when he washed their feet earlier that evening. “I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you” (cf. John 13:15).
The love that Jesus commands his disciples to embody and make their own is no ordinary love. It is love that is seen and touched, a love that seeks the wellbeing of the other without counting the cost. “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” Jesus did not lay down his life for his brothers and sisters only on Good Friday. This is something that dotted his life in its entirety. Jesus laid down his life for the hungry when he fed them; he laid down his life for the sick when he healed them; he laid down his life for those pushed onto the margins of the society when he reached out to them and embraced them. Jesus was himself love in action, and this is what he was proposing to his disciples (and to us).
Love is the gift which Jesus brought to the world when he assumed a creaturely nature. Love was the departing gift which Jesus left for his disciples. Love was to be the message that the disciples were to take to the ends of the earth. For the saving power of God that has been revealed to the world (Responsorial Psalm) is nothing other than the love of God incarnate, our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the personification of God’s love to his creation. Just as Jesus embodied the love of God in his being and revealed it to the world in his life, the disciples were likewise to embody the love of Jesus and reveal it to the world through their lives. Like Jesus, their very lives were to be the Gospel of love that they were to preach. To realize this, they had to remain in the love of their master. In other words, the disciples had to assume the life of Jesus by allowing Jesus to live in them.  
Love is the good news that we too must preach to the ends of the earth. We tell the world that we belong to Jesus when we strive to live the kind of life that he did (you are my friends if you keep my commandment of love). Like Jesus, we recognize that our call demands that we put the interests of our brothers and sisters ahead of our own. For the kind of love that Jesus requires of us is that which we have learnt from him.