Why did Jesus call loving one another a “new” commandment, when loving your neighbor had already been the standard for generations? In this sermon, Lori Alford traces the answer back to the upper room, where Jesus knelt down with a towel and washed his disciples’ feet, including the feet of Judas, who would betray him within hours. Jesus didn’t ask his followers to love each other as they love themselves. He asked for something far costlier: love as he had loved them, hands open, arms outstretched, cruciform.

Speaking honestly into River Road’s own season of uncertainty as Pastor Bert faces his cancer treatment, Lori names the church’s shared grief and hope, and points to the countless ways this congregation is already living out that same sacrificial love for one another. This is a tender, encouraging sermon about what it means to be held together not by a single leader, but by love itself.