What Love is Jesus Talking About?

Homily for the 5th Sunday of Easter

Given at St. Jude, May 17-18, 2025

By Deacon Ken Steponaitis

Readings: 5th Sunday of Easter - Cycle C

Video of the Mass

As we continue to celebrate Easter, it is important to realize that if the resurrection had not happened, we might as well board this place up, lock the doors, and sell off the property. Because without the resurrection, there is no Christianity.

I say this not to exaggerate the situation because I cannot be dramatic enough about how profound the resurrection is. The best way I can come close to explaining to you how profound the celebration of Easter is intended to be is to relate it to a profound experience in your life.

For those of you who are old enough, it may be something like the day President Kennedy was shot. Or maybe it was one of the shuttle disasters, or 9-11, or COVID. It could have been an unexpected death of a friend or family member, or the war you fought in, or maybe some other life-or-death experience. Or maybe it was your marriage or the birth of your children. Maybe for young people, it was your high school or college graduation. It could be the day you chose to come back to the church or the day you became Catholic at Easter Vigil.

These very profound times of our lives cause us to see things in a kind of before-and-after perspective. We remember things in relation to these very profound times of our lives. There is a kind of death to the old life and a resurrection of a new life. An old way of seeing things and a new way. Often these transitional times in our lives are the culmination of something very difficult, and often they cause us to live our lives in a whole new way.

That is what Easter is intended to be. And the Church tries to make it that way by having us experience Lent and then celebrate the resurrection during Easter. But for us in this post-resurrection society, it’s hard to have that profound sense of what the resurrection means. But when we reflect on our readings for today, we can begin to get a sense of what it was like for the early Christian community after Jesus was seen alive again by his disciples.

In our first reading, unless we go back and read the verses before what we read today, we don’t hear the true perspective. For example, “they” who proclaimed the good news of the resurrection were Barnabas and Paul. We wouldn’t know that Paul had just been stoned for proclaiming that good news.

Remember Paul had one of those very profound times in his life. Pre-resurrection, Paul was facilitating the persecutions of Christians. And then on his way to Damascus, to persecute more Christians, he experienced a profound moment when the resurrected Jesus, in a brilliant light, knocks him down and asks him, “Why are you persecuting ME?” Why are you persecuting those who love me? It took that very profound time in his life to have him see something different. And his whole life was flipped upside down. He went from persecuting Christians to building Christian communities around the Mediterranean. He went from thinking it was the Jews who were the chosen people of God, to understanding that even the Gentiles, even his enemies, the non-Jewish people, could also be chosen.

Paul walked away from his stoning and continued his pursuit of growing the Christian Churches. And for Paul, it was not about what he, Paul, did, it was “what God had done with them and how God had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.” Paul was not taking credit for his works, because had it not been God working through him, he couldn’t have done any of what he did.

In our second reading today, we read about John’s vision of what the post-resurrection world is like. John describes this new world as a “holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” While it is true that John is describing the place we call heaven, don’t just think of it in terms of what happens after we physically die in this world and are resurrected.

John’s description is about a post-resurrection society where, because of the love of Jesus, that love that Jesus says he wants us to love like, that if we loved like that, we would be living in a holy city, a new kind of Jerusalem.

The bride adorned for her husband is about the Church, who is the bride, and Jesus, who is the husband. That’s the kind of relationship Jesus wants with us.

It’s a whole new post-resurrection world!

When Jesus says in our Gospel reading, “I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another;” this is post-resurrection talk even though the story takes place before Jesus is sentenced to death.

Judas has just left to turn Jesus over to the authorities, and although Jesus knows what Judas must do, don’t think that Jesus doesn’t love Judas. And now Jesus can prepare his disciples for a very profound change in their lives. So profound that what is currently their lives is about to be radically turned upside down. That after they see the resurrected Jesus and come to understand and believe in who and what Jesus Christ is in their lives; they too will be resurrected into a new life even before they physically die.

In our gospel reading, we heard, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in him.” This again is post-resurrection talk. Out of love, Jesus is about to cosmically change the world. It is Jesus’ willingness to give everything of His life to save us that glorifies Him.

Remember just prior to this reading, Jesus has washed the feet of his disciples, including Judas, to show his disciples the kind of love Jesus wants them to exhibit.

In English, love can mean so many different things. I can love steak and lobster or that cruise I went on. In Greek, it’s called ludus, or playful love. I can be attracted to a lovely girl and have that fluttery feeling in me. In Greek, that is eros love. I can have a kind of love for my dear friends. That’s philia love. I can have love for my wife, children, mother, father, and the rest of my family. That is called storge love. But those kinds of love are not what Jesus is talking about, even if some of those types of love lead us to the kind of love Jesus is talking about.

I did a homily for a mass at All Saints School in North Dallas. The whole homily was about the kind of love Jesus has and wants us to have. The kind of love that I was describing to those kids was called agape love. The next day after that homily, I was given a gift. It was a wood carving. If you look at it from one side, it spells out the word agape. If you look at it from the other side, it is a cross.

This gift is a visual reminder of what agape love is all about. Because the love that Jesus is asking us to love like is a love that says I am willing to give up everything for others. That the kind of love Jesus loves us with is a love that says, I am willing to give my very life, I am willing to hang on a cross for the good of others.

The crucifix for us Catholics is a beautiful reminder of agape love. Agape is not a feeling; it is a doing. It is doing for others for their good, without expecting anything in return. Not a thank you, not a single acknowledgment, and in fact, could even result in persecution.

One way I can illustrate agape love is to relate it to changing a diaper. We love our children too much to allow them to sit in a dirty diaper. We are willing to smell the smells, wipe up the mess because we care for them. And never once have I heard the baby say thank you or even acknowledge what we have done for them. It is an unpleasant experience but one we do out of agape.

Post-resurrection love is not what the Jewish people were thinking. They were in the eye-for-eye, tooth-for-a-tooth mindset, as many of us are today. Jesus is telling us that to do selfless things for the good of others, even our enemies, is to bring about a new Jerusalem, a marriage between us and God. It is a love, however, that can risk our very lives.

As I said before, to love like Jesus loves is impossible for us. And Jesus knows that. This is why we come to communion. To take in Jesus’ body and blood so that through the graces of our baptism and through our marriage-like union with God, the Holy Spirit who indwells with us, and out of faith and trust in Jesus’ agape love, and his resurrection, we are moved to love in a way that is impossible for us, but not with the help of God. Just like Paul, we need to recognize that it is what God has done for us that allows us to do agape.

So how can we trust God enough that we too can do agape love? I think the key may be to try it in a small way. Ask yourself right now, who is the one person I know in my life that while I don’t think they deserve it, I am going to do a selfless thing for their good. Not because I expect anything in return from them, but only because it is good for them and me too. Who is that person? Now turn to God and ask Him to give you the courage, the strength, the wherewithal to do agape love for that one person.

Maybe it’s taking your child who has really angered you to do something they want to do … just the two of you … just to be with them and love on them.

Maybe for you kids, it’s about doing the chore that your sister or brother is supposed to do. You do it for them just so they can have a break from their chores.

For anyone who is estranged from one of their family members, maybe reach out to them and simply ask them how they’re doing, tell them you care, and hope for them all is going well.

Maybe for that co-worker you’re having a difficult time with, you provide some help with a task that if they accomplish it ahead of schedule, they get the credit.

I tell you; agape will change and resurrect you to a whole new life. And if we can truly appreciate Jesus’ resurrection and the power His love has to kill off evil and sin, we will understand the power of our agape on the lives of those around us in this post-resurrection world.