Love, No Matter What
A Brief Reflection for Holy Thursday, 2026
Love, No Matter What
Love one another.
No.
Matter.
What.
This is Jesus’ command to his disciples during their last meal together.
Love one another. No matter what.
Love each other in the way I have shown you how to love, for “that is the only way people will know that you are my disciples,” Jesus says.
Our entire Lenten journey this year has been around the concept of following Jesus on “The Way.”
And now, Jesus comes to the hardest choice he has ever had to make, the most difficult part of the human journey.
For He knows exactly who is sitting at that table. He knows what they are about to do.
And I think, because he practiced it so very much, when the time came, he chooses to love them anyway.
But he still has to make a choice. He can stay on his current path of love and obedience to the Way of Love, knowing that if he stays consistent, staying true to what he’s taught and preached and who he is, will most assuredly end his life, and soon.
Or, he can ‘save’ himself by running away, fleeing the wrath of the empire.
Facing this choice, what guides him? What guides us in the most difficult moments and choices we have to make in our own lives?
For Jesus, it was love.
Agape love.
The kind of love that is unconditional,
Unselfish,
The kind of love that is focused on all of humanity, love for all, not just for some.
It’s important to remember that when Jesus says, ‘Love one another as I have loved you,’
Judas is still in the room.
This kind of love is what Jesus is talking about when he says his disciples are to love one another as he has loved us.
Not just loving our families, or our Sunday School class, or our church, or our community or our friends. Jesus is talking about loving everyone, as he does.
Love one another. No. Matter. What. This is the only way people will know you represent me, says Jesus. All of this is for love.
It was for love that he ties a towel around his waist. He kneels. He takes into his hands the feet of the very people who are about to fail him.
Including the one who will betray him. Including the one who will deny him.
Including the ones who will run.
Can we imagine, as he is washing his disciples’ feet, the look of tenderness he had for his disciples? Beloved, Jesus looks at you the same way. He looks at you with tenderness, love and grace that comes at a depth we can hardly imagine. Can you behold the depth of his love for you? And not just you, but for everyone.
He commands us to love others in the same way. Taking on the role of the servant, caring for one another, no matter how difficult or different our neighbors may be.
Can we look at one another in the same way he looks at us, with grace, tenderness and forgiveness, with love; caring for one another no matter how different they are, even and especially and despite being at odds with one another?
Can you love someone who has disappointed you?
Can you love someone you disagree with?
Can you love someone even though we know they may never change?
Jesus shows us that, with God’s grace, it is possible.
The most important choice we can make in life, especially with hard decisions, is to let love lead the way, to embrace love, no matter what.
That’s why the Apostle Paul reminds us that these things remain: faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these, he tells us, is love.
Tonight, we will practice that love.
We will come to the table.
We will receive bread and cup.
We will watch water being poured.
And in all of it, Jesus is saying the same thing again and again:
Love one another.
No matter what.
Even when it costs you.
The world will not know we are Christians
by our theology,
or our certainty,
or our correctness—
the world will know us as Christians by our love.
Amen.