January 24
John 15.9-17
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I 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. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit — fruit that will last — and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.
There are several places in the preceding passages in John where Jesus says to obey his commands and obey his teachings. But it is only here that he says, this is my command. Jesus responds to Thomas, wondering where Jesus is going. Jesus responds to Philip, asking to see the Father. And Jesus responds to Judas (not Iscariot), asking why Jesus only shows himself to them, not others. Now finally saying that the answer to it all is that they are commanded to love. Love Jesus, love friends, love each other, love people.
How hard is it for us to love people? Maybe we find that the easiest and most natural thing to do. If so, help others of us to get there with you. Maybe you have the experience of many.
I have lived it out recently. It was part of my own struggle. I had cleaned the one neighbour’s drive of snow a few times. Not looking for any gratitude or other compensation. But there was no effort there to get the drive or walk cleaned on her own. No effort to get out at all.
It was a few days from this last large snow fall before I went and cleaned it again. I could have done it earlier. It would have been easier to do then. But I missed out on time to live out the love of Christ that he already showed me.
We find that Jesus, in his love for us, does not wait and does not fail. Always loves us, always as we need it. And he gives us the opportunity to live out that love, even if we delay or fail at first. His love allows us to love.
Song – At the Cross
Prayer
Gracious God, out of your love and mercy you breathed into dust the breath of life, creating us to serve you and our neighbors. Call forth our prayers and acts of tenderness and strengthen us to face our mortality, that we may reach with confidence for your mercy in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.