John
15:9-17
(Jesus said) As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my
love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have
kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things
to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No
one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You
are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any
longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have
called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have
heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed
you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give
you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you
may love one another.
This
is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
·
We’ve been
taught all our lives that commandments are not to be taken lightly. The
well-known Ten Commandments found in the Old Testament are not all that there
are. The Torah of the Old Testament is said to outline 613 commandments, all of
which outline how a person is to live, including what to eat, what to wear, or
what behaviour to tolerate in a person’s children. There are rules –
commandments- for how, what, and when to make sacrifice in the Temple. There
are rules for marriage, for work, for dealing with foreigners, and for dealing
with relations and family. Did you know there is a commandment that forbids
tattoos? Or wearing clothing of different materials at the same time? Or eating
shrimp? Or shaving a man’s beards… under certain conditions?
·
I personally
cannot even remember the number of the Laws outlined in the Old
Testament, let alone keep them.
·
So we hear
of Jesus adding a new commandment: This
is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
Sounds like an easy thing, a snap for anybody to do.
·
The real
issue is that the love Jesus is speaking of is not the warm and mushy feeling
of love that the TV shows and movies portray. That sort of love is not easy to
conjure up for each and every person we might meet today, tomorrow, or any day.
So does that mean we don’t and can’t love unless we have a warm, squishy
feeling in our proverbial hearts?
·
Can this
then be a commandment? Are we to manipulate our emotions and feelings to
achieve some sort of elevated state of love where we are loving all the time?
And if we don’t feel love and feel loving, is it gone?
·
Jesus is
not talking about that sort of love – affection or friendship or even romantic
love. This sort of love goes much deeper and finds it roots in something more
profound than the attraction of the eyes. In the Scripture’s original language,
the word Jesus uses for “love” is not an expression of affection and warm,
cuddly feelings.
·
What Jesus
is telling his disciples of is a love that finds its expression in action, in self-sacrifice
for the good of the other. It isn’t even required that this sort of love be
returned.
·
Such a love
takes more than emotion, more than human will. When we consider the placement
of this passage in John’s Gospel, we note that what we heard today follows on
the heels of Jesus’ vine-and-branches statements. What he is asking can only be
done by those who are living as branches of the True Vine.
·
In that
light, we can see that grace is required and is the basis here. Such love
cannot be commanded unless the Spirit of God fills the one who is t0 love. As I
said a moment ago, such love is only possible and even sensible if that person
is a branch living from the true vine, Jesus.
·
Jesus even
gives the greatest example of this sort of love in his address to the disciples
at the Last Supper, the setting in which this address is placed. He says No one has greater love than this, to lay
down one's life for one's friends. Our thoughts are immediately
drawn to the cross of Jesus Christ as the ultimate expression of this love.
·
Still, there
are many ways this can be expressed. Few of us might be asked to lay down our
lives for our friends, our family, or our fellow disciples of Christ. Yet it is
still possible we might lay down our lives in some smaller way. In the early
church, someone who bore the pain of insult and did not return the pain or who
did not pay another back for some distress that was caused them, would be said
to be laying down his soul for his neighbor. Again, the relationship of the two
as disciples is understood.
·
In any
event, this “Laying down of one’s life” is the work of grace and we can do
nothing outside of the grace of Jesus.
·
So as Jesus
said to the disciples: If you keep
my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's
commandments and abide in his love. And Jesus’ commandment remains This is my commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved you. We know this commandment is not easy,
for we know ourselves, but with grace, it is ours to fulfill.
(Jesus said) I am giving you these commands so
that you may love one another.
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