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“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." - John 15: 12 -13
As children, we will inevitably establish ourselves as the heroes of all our daydreams. We will be the ones who save the day. We will be the ones who decipher the code, follow the clues, and solve the mystery. We will be the ones who save the world! As we grow and mature, we realize that there are many heroes in the world, and most are unsung. As we mature in our faith, we understand that the world only needs one savior, Jesus Christ, but many are called to be our savior's followers, workers, and servants. In our text for Sunday, Jesus does not call his disciples heroes; he calls them friends. Jesus spins the meaning of the word "friend" to the highest intensity. He redefines love as action and challenges us to understand the sacrificial nature of friendship. We are made very aware that, once again, Jesus walks his talk as he prepares to lay down his life for the world.
Jesus does not pick the few that follow him as worthy of his death. He does not draw a tight circle around friends and family, only around those he likes and loves to make the ultimate sacrifice for. Instead, Jesus embraces the whole world, as God sent him to do, and in divine partnership with the three in one, he makes the long journey to Calvary. It is not easy to follow Jesus. It is not easy to resist all the world has to offer us in terms of luxury, prestige, financial surplus, and power (or at least what mimics those standards), but it is what we are made for. In following Jesus, we will finally find our most authentic selves. We will finally be at peace in our skin and experience the thrill of community and belonging. We all need to belong to something greater than ourselves; that is what we look for when we spin those childish daydreams. It is good to understand that we do not need to invent that other largeness; we simply follow Jesus into God's wide and expansive mercy, and we will find ourselves home at last.
I can't wait to see you this Sunday as we explore John 15: 12-17 together. I encourage you to read it through several times, let the words and phrases sit in your mind, find a place of curiosity, and explore why they speak to you.
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