The night before Jesus died, he spent time with his closest followers, the people that were like family to him. He had spent three years with them. They asked him questions. He had told stories. He did miracles and then they did miracles. They walked together all around Israel. They thought they were going to die on a boat. They thought they were going to starve a whole crowd. They knew him and he knew them even better.

And they knew each other.

Peter and Andrew were brothers. John and James were brothers. The four of them fished out of the same beach. Philip and Nathanael and Matthew were from the same town, too. Others of the twelve may have been.

So the shortest they had been together was three years. Some had been together their whole lives.

Jesus knows this will be the last time they sit together like this. He’s about to die.

Jesus says, “I’m leaving. You can’t come. You stay here. But here’s how people will know you know me. That you love one another.”

In one sentence, Jesus says that three times. It’s as if, in this last lesson to them, he wants them to be sure that they get it.

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Love one another.

That was about to cost Jesus his life.

Which is why he says, “As I have loved you, love one another.”

But it wasn’t just about the future, that love.

Over and over for the last three years, these people had argued with him, questioned him, accused him of not caring about them. They had misunderstood almost everything he said to them. And he never fired them, never kicked them out of the group, never stopped teaching them.

Loving looked like persistence with them. Loving looked like keeping on.

Love one another.