So, This is Love?
John 15:9-17
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.
--------------------------
In this passage as the Lord Jesus confides in His disciples, He uses the word love nine times. It must be worth repeating.
I have a confession: For as long as I can remember, I have loved fairy tales; you know, the ones where the pretty girl is rescued by the handsome prince and they live happily ever after, after overcoming apparently insurmountable obstacles to their love. I read Cinderella over and over and over again. It was my favorite. And so began my love affair with romantic love and fairy tale endings. I could’ve written books on it myself. I spent hours dreaming about it.
I’m just not sure I would’ve written this passage on love. I’m not sure it’s God’s kind of love that I longed for. Don’t get me wrong. I think romantic love is one manifestation of God’s love. After all, if any of you have been in love, you know you’d die for the one you’re in love with.
But, romantic love is not the full measure of God's love and, in reading this passage, I think it just barely skims the surface of God’s love. Look at what Jesus says: “As the Father loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” How did the Father’s love for Jesus play out? Yes, the Father acknowledged Jesus as His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, to whom we must listen. But…
…the Father also so loved the world (the undeserving, unrepentant, sinful world) that He sent His Son for its salvation. The Father’s purpose cost the beloved Son His life. Yes, we know the end of the story. The Father resurrects His beloved Son from the dead. But, still, there was abandonment and suffering, and it was intense, and it was completely undeserved, and it was unto death…and this is God’s love story involving His perfect, obedient beloved Son!
So, when Jesus says something like, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love,” I have a strong impulse to close the book and pick up Cinderella. But, I read on. Why? Because I’ve learned a few things about Jesus and I’ve experienced His love in my life as a disciple. And, yes, I am a disciple, if a terribly imperfect one. It is significant that the Lord is talking here to His disciples. They already know something about Him and His love. Enough to want to follow Him, and to pay attention.
Here, Jesus commands them -- and us -- to love each other as He has loved us, and, just in case we missed it the first time, He says it again. It’s worth repeating.
This is a strange love that Jesus is talking about. It is God’s other-centered love, which disciples are to practice -- not human love, which is often centered on self. But, love is strange, isn’t it? Even the merely human variety? I mean, it makes us do crazy things, doesn’t it? And, when it’s real, even when it’s just romantic, it makes us think much more of the other than we do of ourselves. When in love we are more-often-than-not consumed with thoughts of the one whom we love.
In this passage, however, Jesus is clearly not talking about day-dreams.
How does God – who IS Love -- understand love? Love, God’s style, is not all roses and candlelit-dinners and love-making. No. In God’s love story (and those of us who believe know that Jesus is the perfect hero in God’s great love story) that’s not the evidence of love. Not at all. Here is what Jesus says is the greatest proof: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
The evidence, it seems, is found not so much in a dozen roses, or even in a diamond ring, but in suffering and sacrifice, all selfless in nature. Jesus is pointing us towards God’s love (hence He begins with the Father’s love), the source of all our meager attempts at love. To love like that, it seems like we need to forget about fairy tales.
Fairy tales end happily, but they’re not real.
The good news is that God’s love for us is real. Those of us who know Jesus know that His love is real. All of us want to be loved like He loved us. Will there be suffering in love like that? Yes. Jesus first loved like that. It cost Him His life. He does not want His disciples to be deluded about the cost of love that reflects God’s love.
I find it intriguing, therefore, that Jesus adds, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Have you ever suffered for love? Then you will know it doesn’t feel like joy. And, yet, maybe the fact that you have found a love so deep, so satisfying, so complete, that you would suffer and die for it, is in itself a joy.
Love. Joy. Laying down one’s life. It’s certainly not popular culture’s love equation. But, it is the love equation that our Risen Lord writes.
This was Jesus’ farewell discourse with His disciples. He was sharing His last meal with those He loved and called to remain in His love -- before He died a horrible death for them. It was just before their hearts and hopes would be utterly devastated, buried deep in a tomb. This is when Jesus talks to His chosen ones about love and joy and bearing fruit.
Maybe He already knew how God’s love story ends. Or maybe knowing how His Father loves Him, He just trusts Him implicitly, and rests in His love. Maybe He wanted to pass along that reassurance to His disciples.
So, how does God’s Tale end? Impossibly. Incredibly. With Resurrection. A complete reversal of tidings. Unlike human love, the power of God’s love is uninhibited and unlimited. It breaks through all human limitations and boundaries and beyond all human expectations. It is the kind of love that is willing to die. It is also the kind of love that overcomes death.
And – unlike my favorite fairy tale – it is real and it is true.
Maybe that’s why I kept reading. Once you’ve tasted the real thing, you won’t want to settle for mere fairytale.
Even when it hurts.
--------------------------
Dear Lord,
I confess that I don’t want to suffer. I might be willing to suffer, but it’s not what I want. It hurts too much. Where is the joy? Is it in finding and remaining in true, lasting love – the kind that has a divine spark?
I want to remain in true love. Your love is the truest.
Having tasted it, I know it’s the real thing. And I am truly grateful for it. Thank you for living – and dying – because you love me, even when I am unloveable. Thank you for initiating that love, and for taking the trouble to teach me about God’s love.
Help me not to resist the lesson just because it hurts.
Thank you that you want to make my joy complete.
Help me keep your command. Help me remain in your love.
In Jesus my beloved Lord’s name I pray.
Amen.
9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.
--------------------------
In this passage as the Lord Jesus confides in His disciples, He uses the word love nine times. It must be worth repeating.
I have a confession: For as long as I can remember, I have loved fairy tales; you know, the ones where the pretty girl is rescued by the handsome prince and they live happily ever after, after overcoming apparently insurmountable obstacles to their love. I read Cinderella over and over and over again. It was my favorite. And so began my love affair with romantic love and fairy tale endings. I could’ve written books on it myself. I spent hours dreaming about it.
I’m just not sure I would’ve written this passage on love. I’m not sure it’s God’s kind of love that I longed for. Don’t get me wrong. I think romantic love is one manifestation of God’s love. After all, if any of you have been in love, you know you’d die for the one you’re in love with.
But, romantic love is not the full measure of God's love and, in reading this passage, I think it just barely skims the surface of God’s love. Look at what Jesus says: “As the Father loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.” How did the Father’s love for Jesus play out? Yes, the Father acknowledged Jesus as His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased, to whom we must listen. But…
…the Father also so loved the world (the undeserving, unrepentant, sinful world) that He sent His Son for its salvation. The Father’s purpose cost the beloved Son His life. Yes, we know the end of the story. The Father resurrects His beloved Son from the dead. But, still, there was abandonment and suffering, and it was intense, and it was completely undeserved, and it was unto death…and this is God’s love story involving His perfect, obedient beloved Son!
So, when Jesus says something like, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love,” I have a strong impulse to close the book and pick up Cinderella. But, I read on. Why? Because I’ve learned a few things about Jesus and I’ve experienced His love in my life as a disciple. And, yes, I am a disciple, if a terribly imperfect one. It is significant that the Lord is talking here to His disciples. They already know something about Him and His love. Enough to want to follow Him, and to pay attention.
Here, Jesus commands them -- and us -- to love each other as He has loved us, and, just in case we missed it the first time, He says it again. It’s worth repeating.
This is a strange love that Jesus is talking about. It is God’s other-centered love, which disciples are to practice -- not human love, which is often centered on self. But, love is strange, isn’t it? Even the merely human variety? I mean, it makes us do crazy things, doesn’t it? And, when it’s real, even when it’s just romantic, it makes us think much more of the other than we do of ourselves. When in love we are more-often-than-not consumed with thoughts of the one whom we love.
In this passage, however, Jesus is clearly not talking about day-dreams.
How does God – who IS Love -- understand love? Love, God’s style, is not all roses and candlelit-dinners and love-making. No. In God’s love story (and those of us who believe know that Jesus is the perfect hero in God’s great love story) that’s not the evidence of love. Not at all. Here is what Jesus says is the greatest proof: “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
The evidence, it seems, is found not so much in a dozen roses, or even in a diamond ring, but in suffering and sacrifice, all selfless in nature. Jesus is pointing us towards God’s love (hence He begins with the Father’s love), the source of all our meager attempts at love. To love like that, it seems like we need to forget about fairy tales.
Fairy tales end happily, but they’re not real.
The good news is that God’s love for us is real. Those of us who know Jesus know that His love is real. All of us want to be loved like He loved us. Will there be suffering in love like that? Yes. Jesus first loved like that. It cost Him His life. He does not want His disciples to be deluded about the cost of love that reflects God’s love.
I find it intriguing, therefore, that Jesus adds, “I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Have you ever suffered for love? Then you will know it doesn’t feel like joy. And, yet, maybe the fact that you have found a love so deep, so satisfying, so complete, that you would suffer and die for it, is in itself a joy.
Love. Joy. Laying down one’s life. It’s certainly not popular culture’s love equation. But, it is the love equation that our Risen Lord writes.
This was Jesus’ farewell discourse with His disciples. He was sharing His last meal with those He loved and called to remain in His love -- before He died a horrible death for them. It was just before their hearts and hopes would be utterly devastated, buried deep in a tomb. This is when Jesus talks to His chosen ones about love and joy and bearing fruit.
Maybe He already knew how God’s love story ends. Or maybe knowing how His Father loves Him, He just trusts Him implicitly, and rests in His love. Maybe He wanted to pass along that reassurance to His disciples.
So, how does God’s Tale end? Impossibly. Incredibly. With Resurrection. A complete reversal of tidings. Unlike human love, the power of God’s love is uninhibited and unlimited. It breaks through all human limitations and boundaries and beyond all human expectations. It is the kind of love that is willing to die. It is also the kind of love that overcomes death.
And – unlike my favorite fairy tale – it is real and it is true.
Maybe that’s why I kept reading. Once you’ve tasted the real thing, you won’t want to settle for mere fairytale.
Even when it hurts.
--------------------------
Dear Lord,
I confess that I don’t want to suffer. I might be willing to suffer, but it’s not what I want. It hurts too much. Where is the joy? Is it in finding and remaining in true, lasting love – the kind that has a divine spark?
I want to remain in true love. Your love is the truest.
Having tasted it, I know it’s the real thing. And I am truly grateful for it. Thank you for living – and dying – because you love me, even when I am unloveable. Thank you for initiating that love, and for taking the trouble to teach me about God’s love.
Help me not to resist the lesson just because it hurts.
Thank you that you want to make my joy complete.
Help me keep your command. Help me remain in your love.
In Jesus my beloved Lord’s name I pray.
Amen.
posted by Ruth at 11:39 AM
1 comments
