In the limited time Jesus has with his disciples in John 15 before his betrayal and crucifixion, Jesus’ focus is on love. Love one another as I have loved you. And remember that you did not choose me, but I chose you. A sermon on abiding in Jesus’ love as his disciples.
Today’s Gospel reading is John 15:9-17, and this sermon draws on two of my previous sermons on this passage, from May 6, 2018, & May 9, 2021. Also particularly helpful is this 2018 column from David Lose. Here’s the livestream from Living Hope and the sermon podcast audio from Christ the King.
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Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our risen Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen
Finish this sentence: All you need is….[love]. Love is…[all you need].
Despite what Lennon and McCartney might think, love is not the only thing Jesus talked about, but it’s definitely what’s on his mind in today’s reading. First, let’s locate where we are in the story.
Six weeks ago we celebrated Easter Sunday, and in the book of Acts, it says after Jesus was resurrected, he appeared to his disciples speaking about the kingdom of God over a period of 40 days, then he ascended into heaven.
So, 40 days after Easter is this Thursday, which is Ascension Day, which we’ll celebrate next Sunday, then a week and a half later we get to Pentecost – pente meaning 50, 50 days after Passover slash Easter, when the Holy Spirit shows up and the church gets started. Here’s the challenge though: The Bible doesn’t really tell us what Jesus taught the disciples between Easter and Pentecost.
So, for these in-between weeks of the Easter season, our Gospel readings jump back to John 15, where Jesus is teaching about abiding in our heavenly Father’s love. We continue right where we left off last week, with Jesus talking about how he is the vine and we are the branches, and to bear good fruit we need to stay connected to the vine. To do good works and make a difference in the world, we need to stay connected to Jesus.
But I think it’s important to realize where this teaching comes from. John 15 isn’t in those weeks after the resurrection; it’s actually right before the crucifixion.
Here’s a quick outline of John’s gospel, his story about Jesus. The first chapter is the prologue, John’s beautiful Christmas story about the eternal word becoming flesh and dwelling among us. By the end of chapter 1, Jesus is baptized and calling disciples. The next 10 chapters are Jesus’ public ministry, teaching, healing, and doing other miracles.
Then chapter 12 is the Palm Sunday story, the triumphant entry into Jerusalem. Chapter 13 is Jesus washing his disciples’ feet at the last supper, and then, on that same night in which he was betrayed, sitting there after they’ve shared the meal together, there are four chapters of Jesus teaching.
And the thing is, Jesus knows this is the last time he has with the disciples before his death. He knows how hard the next few days are going to be for his disciples, how hard it’s going to be for them to watch him die, so he gives them the best encouragement he can, and then he spends all of chapter 17 praying for them.
But here in chapter 15, in this farewell address, with the very limited time he has left with his followers, look where Jesus’ focus is: It’s on love. Jesus doesn’t spend this time on detailed theological propositions, or arguing philosophical proofs, or debating details of the law; he simply tells them to love one another as he has loved them. All those other things are important, but when in doubt, the baseline is love. Love is all you need.
And he only gives them one example of what love looks like. In verse 13, he says, “Greater love has no one than this: To lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
That works on at least two levels, right? Literally, Jesus is about to lay down his life for his friends, for us. He’s about to be crucified, to give up his life as the ultimate expression of love, to receive in his body the consequences of sin.
When Martin Luther was asked how he pictured God, he is said to have answered, “When I think of God, I think of a man hanging on a tree.” The cross is where we look when we want to see what God looks like, what God is like, God’s nature, because the cross is the most clear, most profound, most obvious picture of love imaginable. Jesus—who is God in the flesh, God with us—lays down his life willingly, out of love. He sacrifices himself to show us how much God loves the world, how much God loves you and me. When the world insists on violence, Jesus offers love.
No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. Love one another as I have loved you.
But love is not limited to literally dying. Laying down your life for another includes anything you do selflessly, anything you do to benefit someone else rather than yourself. Your life is finite. If you take ten minutes to run an errand, run down to the grocery store for someone else, it might not feel like you’re shortening your life, but those ten minutes are gone. You can’t get them back. If you give money to help someone else, well, money is really a stand-in for time, right? You’re giving of yourself.
Like we talked about a couple weeks ago, love involves sacrifice. You can’t show love without giving something up, whether it’s time, money, effort, attention. The challenge Jesus presents to us is this: How will you spend your life? Will it be love? Or something else?
With the limited time he has, Jesus tells his followers to give of ourselves, to share the love we’ve been given. And then he puts in another detail, another one of what I think are the most important phrases in the Bible.
After he tells the disciples that they are his friends—and there’s a whole lot we could unpack there too, what does it mean for God to call you a friend? How does it change the way you think about God to know God calls you friend?—after he tells the disciples he has called them friends, he says: “You did not choose me but I chose you.”
That’s a hard concept for us to grasp. We want to be in control; we want to be the ones making decisions. At least, we think we do. Human nature is to try to be God, to try to be responsible for our own salvation, to think we can handle eating the forbidden fruit.
But when we have the freedom to choose, we mess it up. We choose the wrong thing. Thank God my salvation does not depend on me choosing Jesus, because even when I know what I should do, I’m really good at choosing the wrong thing.
We began our worship today with confession, not to beat ourselves up, but to admit the truth that on our own, we go the wrong way. We cause harm by what we do and what we fail to do. We cannot on our own live the way God created us to live.
You did not choose me, but I chose you. That’s really good news, isn’t it?
In a moment, we’re going to sing the hymn Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing, and especially in verse three, it has a beautiful illustration of this idea of God choosing us, which we call grace.
Some of you know I have a love/hate relationship with this hymn. Sometimes people complain that the words of hymns aren’t relevant anymore, or we should sing simpler songs so people understand what they’re singing. If you’re going to make that argument, this is a great song for it.
Verse 2: Here I raise my Ebenezer. When was the last time you raised an Ebenezer? I think I’ve even mentioned this before here – anyone know what this is talking about?
It’s from 1 Samuel 7:12. The Israelites were in trouble, God rescued them from their Philistine enemies, and as a monument to God’s saving them, Samuel set up a stone as a monument, saying “Thus far the Lord has helped us.” The word “Ebenezer” means “stone of help.” So, raising an Ebenezer means setting up a monument of what God has done for you, to testify to God’s grace for you. It’s a powerful image, but you have to know what it means.
I love the rest of this song, though. Thinking about the promise that God chooses us, pay attention to the words as we sing: Jesus sought me when a stranger, wandering from the fold of God. We wandered off from God, but Jesus, like a good shepherd, seeks us out and brings us back. He, to rescue me from danger, interposed his precious blood.
Oh, to grace, how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be. When you understand the love of God, when you abide in God’s love, you realize everything you have, everything you are is a gift from God. Love is all you need.
Let that grace now like a fetter bind my wandering heart to thee. God, grab ahold of me and hold on to me up so I quit wandering off and abandoning you.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it; prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it; seal it for thy courts above. God, when I wander away, bring be back into your love. Remind me who I am when I forget I’m your beloved child.
There is a lot of intellectual work we can do to study God, to unpack theology, to learn about God through logic and reason and philosophy. There are a lot of obscure Biblical images we can study that point to different aspects of God.
But ultimately, all of our best efforts to understand God, all our attempts to think our way to God are going to fall short. You can’t prove God exists. Our finite little human minds are incapable of comprehending an infinite God.
But God comes to us. In Jesus Christ, God chooses to be revealed to you. This is the way we see and know God, in the love of Jesus giving himself for us. God chooses you.
And in response, we love. We obey God’s commandments, as the Holy Spirit enables us. The Holy Spirit draws us to faith, and we love because God first loved us. We bear fruit.
Our call is not to understand everything. Understanding is important; theology matters; we need to keep studying and questioning and learning. Obedience is important. Bearing good fruit is important.
But all of it is in service to the fundamental command Jesus gives us: Love as you have been loved. Do what Jesus tells you to do. Lay down your life, give of yourself, serve others. All you need is love. Abide in your Heavenly Father’s love.
Amen