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

We are currently reading through Jesus' Farewell Discourse to His disciples.  Yesterday, we read that He told 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."  So essential is this commandment that this is the second time Jesus is giving it.  The first time was at 13:34.  My study bible repeats what it noted at that first occasion of the giving of this commandment:  that Jesus isn't speaking in theories or philosophy here.  The bar is raised high for us:  we are to love one another as He loved us.  That includes the fact that out of love, He laid down His life for His friends -- and even for His enemies.  We have a "living love" example to fulfill.

"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."  My study bible teaches here that friendship is higher than servanthood.  A servant obeys a master out of fear or a sense of duty.  But friends obey out of love and an internal desire to do what is good and right.  It says, "Abraham was called a 'friend of God' (James 2:23) because he obeyed God out of the belief of his heart.  The disciples, and indeed all the saints, are honored as friends of Christ because they freely obey His commandments out of love.  Those who have this spirit of loving obedience are open to receive and understand the revelations of the Father."  There is, one may add, a kind of respect that comes out of love; it has to do with the acknowledgement of the "personhood" of the other, a way to affirm the boundaries of honoring another person and what is best for and in them.

"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 points out that in Scripture, the term world is used in several distinct ways:  "In some cases, it refers to all that is glorious, beautiful, and redeemable in God's creation (3:16).  Other times, it refers to that which is finite in contrast to that which is eternal (11:9; 18:36).  In still other instances, as here, it indicates all that is in rebellion against God (see also 8:23)."   This rebellion, it says, reveals several things:  "(1)  While union with Christ brings love, truth, and peace, it will also bring persecution, because the world (in these terms) hates love and truth (v. 19).  (2)  The world hated Christ; therefore, it will try to hate all who try to be Christlike (v. 20).  (3)  The world hates Christ because it neither knows nor desires to know the Father (vv. 21-24).  (4)  Hatred for Jesus Christ is irrational and unreasonable, for Christ brings love and mercy; thus Christ is hated without a cause (v. 25)."  For "They hated Me without a cause" see also Psalm 69:4.   Another way to understand how the world is referred to here is through Jesus' earlier remark, "I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me" (14:30).

"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."  My study bible tells us that with respect to the working of God's salvation in the world, the Son sends the Holy Spirit from the Father.  But lest the Holy Spirit be diminished as Person of the Trinity, it is understood that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father (as the Son was begotten of the Father).  Eternal existence and shared essence is conveyed through the origin in the Father.  The Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (that which was formed at the first two Ecumenical Councils of the Church) confesses belief "in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father."  

What are we to make of today's reading?  First of all, we note the direct and plain, bold talk of love.  Again, He gives the commandment:  Love one another as I have loved you.  This is not only emphatic for the double reminder we've been given so far in John's Gospel, but is also non-negotiable.  It is the new commandment.  And, here's the next part that makes us have to think and stretch our minds a little:  If we love Him, we will keep His commandments.  Love is an inescapable, irreducible reality of the presence of God, of our faith, and of its working in us.  It defines what God is, as John's Epistle will teach (1 John 4:8).  But this is not a master commanding slaves or servants.  It's a friend who speaks to us, a friend who has already given the greatest love possible before He's asked anything of us:  "Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one's life for his friends."    This is a proactive love!  Those who will return it are the ones who are His, who hear His voice and whom He calls by name.  It's important to make that association of being called by name, because here Jesus makes it clear that this proactive love that He lives is one through which He chooses His friends, His disciples (or learners from the true root of the word).  And then, again, there is the third iteration here:  "These things I command you, that you love one another."    So, how often do we fail at this commandment?  How many ways can we ask ourselves that question?  He's given us this command three times so far in this Gospel.  Three times.  And there's more to this than simply the command.  We're to love one another as He's loved us, even as the world will hate us.  It's hated Him, and He will die because of it -- but even in a world that will rebel against God by "hating" those who love God, we are to remain steadfast in His commandments and therefore particularly so in this one we're given three times, explicitly:  "Love one another as I have loved you."  He sets the standard, He sets the bar.  He teaches us what that means by living a life of proactive love.  He's taught us in the parable of the Good Samaritan in Luke's Gospel what it is to truly be a neighbor.   But for those who love Him, we remember to love one another as He's loved us.  Love, in Christ's example, doesn't only involve all the sacrifices we may be called to because of this love for God (who teaches us to love one another).  Love doesn't even mean only doing to one another as we'd have others do to us.  That's not quite complete.  Love also means following the true Good, what is best.  Love might mean teaching us to make proper sacrifices even when they're painful.  Love means showing the way, even when we don't want to go that way.  Love means, perhaps, a necessary rebuke.  But it's in how this happens that we really learn love.   Love means repentance and responsibility, and knowing what's in ourselves, even sacrificing what might seem like giving up a hand, an eye, a foot if it is poisoning the rest of us (Matthew 18:8-9; see also Matthew 5:27-30).  But it also means forgiveness, a forgiveness up to seventy times seven, a euphemism for an infinite, uncountable number.  Love is a proactive attitude that wants what's best for oneself and for others in the knowledge that it is God who leads us to that "best" and who teaches also how to love.  And this is the great mission of Christ, that He spreads to us as His friends who are chosen to bear fruit for this Gospel.  Let us think about how we can live His way for us.  He is the path, He is the door.  He is the love He commands us to be.  Even when the world may hate what that love really is.