This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you

"This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.  You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.  These things I command you, that you love one another.

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.'  If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.  If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.  But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.  He who hates Me hates My Father also.  If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.  But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.'

"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.  And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning."

- John 15:12-27

Over the course of this week's readings, we have been reading Jesus' Farewell Discourse to the Apostles.  We began on Monday in which Jesus taught, "In My Father's house are many mansions."  In Tuesday's reading, He told them, "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you."   In yesterday's reading, Jesus taught them, "I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.  Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit.  You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.  Abide in Me, and I in you.  As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me.  I am the vine, you are the branches.  He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.  If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.  If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you.  By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.  As the Father loved Me, I also 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.  These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."

"This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."  Here we are in the heart of Christ's message to His disciples; this is what He leaves them with.  He has taught love through discipleship, now they are to emulate the Master in all the ways He has practiced love for them.  My study bible says, "Just as God loves us unconditionally, so we are to love each other unconditionally, in Christ's name -- whether there is a response or not." 

"Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends.  You are My friends if you do whatever I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you."  My study bible notes here:  "Friendship is higher than servanthood.  A servant obeys his master out of fear; a friend is a servant who obeys out of love.  Abraham was called a 'friend of God' (James 2:23) because he believed and obeyed God.  The disciples and the saints are honored as friends of Christ and heirs of God:  'and if children, then heirs -- heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ' (Rom. 8:17; see also Gal. 4:7).  Here Jesus tells his friends those things He has heard from His Father, the truths and blessings which He reveals in the Gospel."  Jesus has been open with His disciples, He has revealed the things of the Father that were given to Him:  therefore they are friends, and in all ways they are to emulate Him, to do His commands, the things He has taught are true.  He lays down His life for His friends, just as He has revealed all to them that was given by the Father.

"You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.  These things I command you, that you love one another."  Again, as in yesterday's reading, there is the emphasis on bearing fruit.  This fruit is not like the seasonal fruit of the world, but gifts of the Spirit that must remain; as we (and they) abide in Him, so we may pray to the Father in His name, in His word and commandment.  And once more, there is the emphasis that is clear:  love one another.

"If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.  If you were of the world, the world would love its own.  Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.  Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.'  If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you.  If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.  But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.  If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin.  He who hates Me hates My Father also.  If I had not done among them the works which no one else did, they would have no sin; but now they have seen and also hated both Me and My Father.  But this happened that the word might be fulfilled which is written in their law, 'They hated Me without a cause.' "  My study bible has a note on this entire passage:  "Regarding the world we learn that:  (1) while union with Christ brings love, joy and peace, it also brings the world's hatred and persecution; (2) the citizens of the world who hate Christians do so because they do not know the Father; (3) a person cannot say he loves God but not God's Son, for those who hate Christ also hate God the Father; and (4) hatred for Jesus Christ is without legitimate cause, for He brings God's love and truth to the world."  Let us consider the persecution the Church was facing already at the time of John's Gospel, and we will come to understand the vicious difficulties of the time.  But in our own time and place, we can also witness such hatreds in the world and in our own lives we may encounter such things as well.  In some sense, it is this love that "calls us out of the world" because its impulse is not "of the world," it doesn't "give as the world gives" (as Jesus said of His peace in Tuesday's reading).  Love here is also inseparable from truth, from His teachings.  Let us understand that to love as He loved is a form of witnessing.  If we are hated for such love, let us remember that it is testimony.

"But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.  And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning."  Again, a helpful note is here:  "While, with respect to God's work in the world, the Son will give or send . . . the Spirit . . . from the Father, with respect to His divinity, the Spirit originates or proceeds from the Father alone:  The Spirit receives His eternal existence only from the Father.  In conformity with Christ's words, the Nicene Creed confesses belief 'in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father.'  By contrast, the Son is eternally begotten of the Father.  The source, the fountainhead, of both is the Father."  The Spirit testifies of Him, sent by the Father.  And the disciples themselves, they will bear witness, because they have been with Him from the beginning, and we have their word in Scripture itself.

Jesus speaks of love in today's reading; perhaps it's the greatest and most powerful word we have on love.  "Love one another as I have loved you."  This is His command, and it's given in such a way as to understand its power and imperative quality.  It is the final command with which He will leave them, and us.  Love is illustrated in many ways in today's reading.  There is first of all Jesus' pointed example of the One who will lay down His life for His friends.  "Greater love," He says, "has no one than this," He tells us.  But there is more love that He speaks about.  Everything that the Father has given to Him, each command, each work, has also been given to them.  He has shared all that is of true value and kept nothing back.  The spiritual reality of the teachings and the works and the love has all been shared; as Master He has kept nothing from them, thereby they are not servants but friends.  And there is more love:  He goes to the Father but the Father will also send the Helper to all of us.  Father, Son and Spirit are together united in love, and are together united in love in us.  We come again to a place where the gift that we are given is inestimable.  And yet, how often do we call upon this gift to ask what is truly valuable?  Here, the things that are shared in this love are the teachings and meanings and values, the true sense of what love is, and everything the Divine can pour out to us and in us so that we may share with one another.  Let us remember the quality of this love.  It may not, in turn, make the world enamored of us.  But this is the love in which we must abide, through which we testify and bear fruit ourselves, and which we are to share with one another, just as He shares with them and with us.  Life is a learning place, with the Helper's help, of what it means to share in this love.  Let us learn.  Let us remember that the Helper is also the Spirit of truth, and that it will teach us the truth of this love.