There was a meal, an emblematic foot washing, a betrayal. Jesus walks into the night, to the Mount of Olives, and then to Gethsemane. But before moving into that imminent dark, he takes a moment, one more, to talk with his disciples, his friends: Maundy, mandatum, "A new mandate I give to you, that you love one another."
The summation of his heart and life: Love. The distillation of our faith. There is nothing else.
Do not bother me about dogma; if you must, at the very most, treat your tenets blithely, but for love.
To lose yourself in love—to lose yourself in the face of another, in the eyes of another, in the tears of another, in the arms of another—and to find yourself, alive still, to find yourself received, alive and received. To find what was lost, but for losing, was never lost, always found. To find yourself loved, before having loved, and having loved, to be found by love, in love, you, alive, received, risen…
There is nothing else.
The ultimate apologetic – “here’s how all people will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another!”
Thanks, Steve.
And thank you Sam.