The command to love

 This week's verses are John 15:12-17:

 My commandment is this—to love one another just as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this—that one lays down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I no longer call you slaves, because the slave does not understand what his master is doing. But I have called you friends, because I have revealed to you everything I heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that remains, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you. This I command you—to love one another.

 Jesus is telling us here to love one another, but he's also telling us a bit about love itself. And it says a bit about the relationship we find ourselves in with him.

God is far greater than we are. He can command us to do whatever he likes and we have no recourse but to obey or be punished. The world is his, and everything in it, including us, is his. He has the right to do as he likes, and nothing we have to offer can compel him to do otherwise.

So that's what makes these verses interesting. Jesus is giving us a command, as is his right, but it is a gentle command to accept his favor and join his household. He invites us to leave the relationship of being the property of a master and to enter a relationship of friendship. His commandment is a conditional proclamation of emancipation.

He says we are his friends if we do what he commands us to do. And here he commands us to love one another as he has loved us. We are asked to be better lovers than anyone else in history. We are still free to remain slaves, if we choose. But we are called to something better.

Jesus reminds us that he loved us first. He was vulnerable with us before he asked us to be vulnerable with him. He chose us and gave us power and responsibility, not vice-versa. He went into captivity, endured torture, died on the cross, and came back unstoppable, so he could set us free. All we brought to the table was our sin.

But he calls us to claim that freedom by loving as he loves. We have to lay our lives down for each other. We have to represent him in the world, so that our hands will do the things his hands would do in the situations we find ourselves in. Our freedom requires greater obedience from us than would be required of us as slaves. It's not just the body that must obey but even the innermost parts of the heart.

And yet, despite such a great offer, very few of us take him up on it. We would rather remain slaves than follow Jesus into the desert of his promise. We want freedom and acceptance, but not if it costs us everything. But God commands us to give up and follow Jesus. What is holding us back?

So that's a good thought for this week. Think about this conversation Jesus is having, and ask yourself if you love others the way Jesus loves you. If not, see if you can find and overcome what is blocking you.