They hated Me without a cause

 "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

In our current readings, Jesus and the disciples are at the Passover Supper known as the Last Supper.  He is giving to them His Farewell Discourse.  In yesterday's reading, Jesus said to 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.  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."  Jesus repeats and emphasizes His new and final commandment, first given at 13:34 (see this reading).  He is emphasizing what it means to be a branch in this vine that He calls Himself (in yesterday's reading, above).  My study bible comments here that friendship is higher than servanthood.  It notes that servants obey their masters out of fear or a sense of duty.  But friends obey out of love and in internal desire to do what is good and right.  This is a most important distinction for our faith and its understanding of relationship and hierarchy.  Abraham was called a "friend of God" (James 2:23), which my study bible says was because he obeyed God out of the belief of his heart, a true faith or trust.  The disciples -- and all the saints -- are honored as friends of Christ for they freely obey His commandments out of love.  My study bible adds that those who have this spirit of loving obedience are open to receive and understand the revelations of the Father.   So important is this new and final command to love one another that Jesus repeats it four times during the Last Supper.

 "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 comments that the term world is used in several distinct ways in Scripture.  In certain cases, it refers to everything that is glorious, beautiful, and redeemable in God's creation (3:16).  At other times, it is used to refer to that which is finite rather than to that which is eternal (11:9; 18:36).  In still other places, as here, it is used to indicate all that is in rebellion against God (see also 8:23).   My study bible adds that the rebellion of the world against God reveals several things.  First of all, while union with Christ brings love, truth, and peace, it also will bring persecution, because the world hates love and truth.  Secondly, the world hated Christ; therefore, it will hate all those who try to be Christlike.  In addition, the world hates Christ because it neither knows nor desires to know the Father.  Finally, hatred for Jesus Christ is irrational and unreasonable.  Christ brings love and mercy -- and He is therefore hated 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."    My study bible says that with respect to God's working salvation in the world, the Son sends the Holy Spirit from the Father.  With respect to the divine nature, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father.  While the Son is begotten of the Father alone, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father; the Source, the Fountainhead, of both Persons is the Father. 

What is it that causes hatred in the world toward Christ, its Creator?  In the most objective sense, this hatred is not rational.  This is not merely because Christ is Creator, but rather because Christ brings into the world what is nominally good, and true, and beautiful.  He brings love.  He brings what is good and orderly to our lives, and helps us make sense of what is not sensible that surrounds us.  He brings order out of chaos, and this is part of salvation for all those who have experienced Christ's healing love and the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives.  But the spirit of rebellion against God lives in our world.  There is still the struggle between God and mammon, between what is merciful and kind and what is merely expeditious and absent all compassion.  We still struggle, as human beings, with our own greed and selfishness.  But most of all the struggle -- and the picture Christ presents here of the contrast or conflict between Himself and the world -- seems to be the contrast between a purely materialistic outlook on life, and one that respects life as something so much more than material, something requiring respect for its potentials, and its Source, and the capabilities of love inherent in that Source of all life for each of us.  Where there is an absence of this understanding, there is a hatred of the possibilities that Christ -- and the Helper, the Holy Spirit -- brings to every situation.  There is a hatred of love, a hatred of compassion, and a will only to the purely material which of course justifies a selfish or self-centered attitude toward all of life.  But Christ emphasizes hatred here.  This is an active contempt for the things of God, and of course for God, and its effects and presence should not be underestimated nor overlooked; and neither should its response to love.  In this midst of this persecution, Jesus emphasizes witnessing, testimony.  The Helper is called the Spirit of truth, and He it is who will testify to the things of Christ for us.  We in turn will witness to the world, and be prepared for its response.  This is a clear-eyed and level-headed call for the love of truth -- right to its absolute depths in spiritual truth, in the reality of the love of God, and the proclamations of the God of love to the world through Christ.  It does not hesitate to say that the world's response will be hatred, but neither does it hesitate to call us to obedience to its commands out of our own capacity for love and response to that love.  In John's First Epistle, he writes of Christ, "We love Him because He first loved us" (1 John 4:19).  This is where we are, the existential condition of the follower and friend of Christ.  Do we respond to that love?  Or does that love and mercy only bring us a sense of entitlement, of selfishness?  It is up to us.  It is our choice.  His call to us -- and His command -- is clear.  His mission is always ready for us to take up.