John 15 Reflection

"If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭10-15 NIV)

Just to give a little context for this passage, Jesus is talking with his disciples during the last meal he will have with them, now more commonly known as The Last Supper.  They don't know this is their last time together.  They can't know the future reality Jesus is speaking of, in saying that the greatest love is to lay down one's life. They won't grasp the implications this will mean for the kind of Messiah Jesus is. They are still reeling from the fact that Jesus has reoriented their idea of salvation to him; not a nation, not an idea; the person of Jesus who is God incarnate.  Now he is calling them friends and telling them to die for each other? Not exactly what they picture the Savior of the world spending his last few minutes on Earth saying. And yet, exactly what the Savior of the world chose to say.

"Alright, I get that you are spinning my profile of a Savior upside down; I can roll with that. So, in order to stay besties with you, I've got to keep your commands.  And that means laying down my life for Matthew and James over there? I will totally fall on the sword for all of these guys here, Jesus, whatever it takes to be in your love." I can imagine this is how Peter may have responded to hearing Jesus share this. Peter was an extreme guy who, although he had a lot of passion, still managed to miss the point a lot. I don't often feel like I can relate to Peter's zeal, but I find my response mirroring what I imagine his was.  "I get the different kingdom thing, great. So in order to remain in Jesus' love, I have to..." Wait, stop right there.  That's where we get on the wrong train. Again. It's not about us doing or not doing. We're already in. Because of Jesus. Earlier in this passage (vs.3), Jesus tells his disciples they are already clean because of the word he has spoken to them. Done. No doing or dying or trying on our part. This is prevenient grace; the speaking clean, the laying down of life, that has gone before us allowing us to be restored to humanity's original relationship with God.

Love one another as Christ, who laid down his life in one of the most painful ways, did for his friends? Prevenient grace is what makes this radical statement not just a possibility, but our necessary response.  He who has gone before and brought us into relationship with the Creator, loved his friends to the point of obedient death on the cross. And now we, who have been brought into this love by the True Vine, must do the same for each other. Not because it earns us bonus points with God. Not because it keeps us remaining in God's love. Not even because it's the "Christian" thing to do. But because that is our response of joy to this going before-ness of grace. A response that is only possible because Christ has already done it.

May we love one another so fully and deeply because Christ has already gone before and demonstrated His love for us. May we find complete joy in that response and thus remain in the love of the True Vine who has already spoken us clean. Praise be to the Father for such a radical command!