Christ the True Friend: the Sixth Sunday of Paschal Tide
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| The Baptism of Cornelius Trevisani, 1709. |
As the Father has loved me, so I 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. I have said
these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be
complete. (John 15: 9-10)
We see here in the Gospel of
St. John the interconnection of love, and command. This chain of interaction is
integral to understanding the atoning work of Christ for us. Through Christ, we
are connected to the love of God, because Christ loves us, and God loves
Christ. We know that God loves Christ, because Christ has kept his Father’s
commandments. However, to remain in Christ’s love, we must keep his
commandments. Remaining in Christ is not seen as an utter certainty, as Christ
commands, cajoles, perhaps even pleads with us to remain in his love.
I have said these things to you so that my joy
may be in you, and that your joy may be complete. (John 15: 11)
Yet this news, we are to
understand, is a thing of joy. The commands of Christ must therefore be
achievable, must be beautiful, must be meaningful. For what joy can come this news
that love comes from holding the commands, if the commands are impossible to
hold? More, what complete joy can be found, if our joy cannot complete us?
But what is the command of
the Lord?
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)
To love one another with the love of
Christ. Is it possible that our hearts are big enough to hold such perfect
love? It must be, or else our joy is just a fool’s hope and a delusion.
But how does one lay down one’s life,
then? In some cases, this may indeed mean to die as Christ has died. But then,
we have already died to ourselves in Christ. So, to lay down our lives must
mean more than simply death. To lay down life is to offer ourselves, our hands
and heads and hearts, to one another. It is not a call to the romantic grave,
but to the wildly alive community. But what sort of community does Christ call
us to?
You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not
call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master
is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you
everything that I have heard from my Father. (1 John 15 14-15)
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| Christ the True Friend with St. Mina Egypt, 8th c. |
Christ, being God, has no
need to assert his own divinity over us. Instead, we are exalted into the
friendship of the divine, the mutual interconnection of free members. This
friendship removes the force within the word “command.” We are not servants,
dutifully accomplishing tasks for our wages. Neither are we slaves, forced to
comply lest the divine decide to make life difficult for us. Our connection to
one another is not through money or blood, but through being told things from
the Father. Our connection is therefore one based in stories and preaching, and
in knowledge of the Father.
But lest the knowledge of our knowing puff us up, and cause us to relax from our duties, Christ reminds us that it is not our choice which leads to such a happy state. Our response must be gratitude for such love, and for such love we pour out our free choices into the commands of Christ. Namely, Christ reminds us to go and bear eternal fruit, so that all our needs and righteous wants will be met. And again, we are reminded that we must, must love one another.
This command of Christ has so much power, when we think about how much Christ knows. Being God, Jesus knows that will fail, often, to love as he has loved. He knows how much each of us has jealously kept our lives when we should have laid them down, sacrificed for a far better life in the divine. And yet, Christ reminds us yet again to love, because Christ knows we can love. We can choose to love each and every day; and if we do just that, trying each and every day to love as Christ does, we may just yet succeed.
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