Our second reading declares that we will see “new heavens and a new earth” (Rev 21:1). Why? The Lord “makes all things new” (Rev 21:5). How does the Lord make all things new? He makes all things new through the love that He has shown us. In the words of St John, “He always loved those who were his own in the world, but now he showed how total his love was” (John 13:1). This is how the evangelist introduced the Passion and Death of Jesus. It is in the perspective of constant and total love that Jesus’ way to the Cross unfolds. This is His way of making all things new.
When Jesus in the Garden says “Let your will be done…” (Luke 22:42), he was reversing the order in the first creation when Adam disobeyed the will of God not to eat from the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil in the garden (Gen 3:6). At the Cross, His side was pierced. Blood and water flowed out, symbols of the Eucharist and Baptism, signifying the birth of the Church (John 19:34), as Adam was put to sleep and from his side came forth his wife. Thus, here Jesus is portrayed as the New Adam and the Church His Bride, the New Eve. What Adam failed to do to love even in the face of death (he let his wife to confront the threat of death in the presence of the serpent), in His Passion and Death, Jesus laid down his life out of love for His Bride the Church. Thus, St Paul proclaims, “The old order has passed away; now all is new” (2 Cor 5:17). Jesus makes all things new through his love to the point of death. “Greater love than this no one has than to lay down one’s life for the beloved” (John 15:13). Jesus is the New Adam bringing about a new creation, restoring humankind to the paradise promised in the beginning. The Church is the “holy city, a new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband” (Rev 21:2).
As Jesus has brought about a new creation through the total love he has manifest in his Passion and Death, he has given a new commandment: “Love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another (John 13:34-35). The Lord continues to make all things new through us, in our loving the way he has loved to the point of death.
We pray that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may carry out the new commandment of Jesus to love one another as he has loved us. For through us, the Church His Bride, in the love that we have for one another, Jesus even today declares, “Behold, I make all things new!”