“No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
Jesus the True Vine – John 15 1-17
15 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. 2 He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes[a] to make it bear more fruit. 3 You have already been cleansed[b]by the word that I have spoken to you. 4 Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing. 6 Whoever does not abide in me is thrown away like a branch and withers; such branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. 7 If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. 8 My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit and become[c] my disciples. 9 As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. 10 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. 11 I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.
12 “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. 13 No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15 I do not call you servants[d] any longer, because the servant[e] 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. 16 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. 17 I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.
Christ is the full reality of these words. He stops at nothing to bring us to His Father – to His very self – to give us life and restore us to wholeness – to transport us into relational possibilities. He conquers Death by relinquishing His limitless Power and Glory to an abject full unbridled humility by breathing and living as one of us (human creatures). Then He thrashes the heinous rulers of this world and leaves death – separation from God – discarded as an unworthy rotten byproduct of selfish fixation that masquerades as egregious Freedom. He brings to fruition the fulfillment of Freedom for our slavery. We are true baby eagles invited to soar with Him in thermals of self-generating and fathomless unconditional Love. He only asks that we surrender our will to Him.
Jesus calls us friends… serves us… and commands us to Love one another. He invites us to follow His example and promises to fill us with His Spirit to move mountains and accomplish what we can never hope to achieve on our own. He sanctifies and blesses us by working through all of us to build God’s Kingdom. Jesus is willing to lay down His life for His friends. What does Jesus call us to do?
There are times when in the name of Jesus we might be asked to lay down our life. However, this could not be the only meaning of Jesus’ words. My heart was combing for new meaning. As a point of comparison on this idea of laying down our lives: when my daughter Sophia was born and I cut the umbilical cord, I had an unbelievable, powerful, strong instinct. I knew I would do anything to protect the life of this child (I experienced this in a different way with Gabriel – not in the same visceral way that I felt it for Sophia). With Sophia it was in my DNA – nothing conscious.
To lay down one’s life for a friend… there is a calling here that goes beyond the martyred heroism of dying for others… in a way these dramatic acts I feel belie the real challenge and opportunity that Chris is offering us. Isn’t he inviting us to learn how to Love the way He and the Father Love who are joined by the playful, creative living impulse of ricocheting Love itself the relational King of Love: the Holy Spirit.
Simple in principle. It’s a love that wants nothing more than for everyone to be as close to Christ as possible. It’s a love that wants everyone to know Christ as their full reality. For Christ to arise in each person and dispel every ounce of darkness. Here’s the amazing thing I am discovering in the process: when we want this for someone else with all of our heart, mind, soul, and body Christ becomes closer and nearer to us.
By wanting others to have Christ and being willing to do anything for them first in prayer and thought, and then when called and guided by Him, in words and deeds we are emancipated from the limits of our self and set free. This self-forgetting becomes the door that Christ uses to come waltzing into our lives. “Self” has no other reality without “Other”. Christ makes us all holy possibilities of otherness. It becomes this consuming blaze that lights our lives on fire. The more we have the more He wants to give. The more we want others to have Him the more He wants to be with us. And then deliciously the “other” becomes more and more beautiful – more glorified – more clearly a child of God clothed in a radiant robe.
Could this be one way to contemplate the promises of heaven? What if we held as our highest purpose and desire through prayerful, sacred imagination that every brother and sister draw closer and closer to Christ? In perfect Union with His Father, Christ is boundless. There is no shortage of His Love and every connection He builds with each one of us His Father’s creation, brings something new into creation… a ceaseless unfolding of realities built not from carbon, and DNA but from the building block of True Life: LOVE.
Laying down our life… like a red carpet of Christ’s Mercy… Each person standing at on one edge of this infinite carpet… coordinating our efforts, looking across at each other, tentative and unsure – hoping to get it – holding the red runner taut on each side to get it straight to make it flow down the middle of His Church… joined by the Love and Mercy of Christ assisting each other to find our way to our ultimate Baptism in the Precious Final Bath of the Lamb’s Sacrificial Blood… the wine of the Passion Cup that unites us to the Vine of Christ to be His branches now and forever.
This joy of helping each other enter the Life of Christ will radiate outwards into ripples of Christ enacting His Grace and Blessings through us… and we will take our place with the Chorus of Holy witnesses…
There is nothing greater than this that we could ever aspire to – and it makes sense – to seek and want our own redemption, our own place in Christ can too easily start looking like self-love – the very prideful thing that was the fall of Lucifer… in fact I was reading a commentary of the Satanic bible and the core of its teaching is all about making self the most important thing (pleasures, desires, power, etc…) – interesting Satan is so clever he does not get us to worship him to fall away from God, he gets us to follow his path of prideful blasphemy and elevate ourselves as the highest and most important thing…
So we need to leave the “self-seeking redemption” part to our Lord (and we know no level of effort of our own will get us anywhere since we are no better than a heap of water and scrap minerals). Instead we count on Him to work through the Holy Spirit to touch us with the selfless expression of love directed through others… after we are free of the Earth’s gravity of sin this will no longer be such a struggle – it will become the air we breathe and the continuous Light of Love we in live in – and then our beautiful eternal journey to God will be just beginning…
There is no end to the Creative Power and Possibilities of Selfless Love that has its beckoning core of God Himself. And our Gracious Great God wants nothing more than to hold us and delight in us.
All praise and glory be yours Heavenly Father now and forever. Precious Lord, Shepherd of our Hearts please show us how to Love like you. AMEN
