The greatest love, says Jesus, is to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. And in the life and death of Jesus, we see God’s incomprehensible love for us and for the world.
Here’s my sermon for the sixth Sunday of Easter, May 9, 2021. Today’s Scripture readings are 1 John 5:1-6 & John 15:9-17.
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 John Lennon and Paul McCartney might think, love is not the only thing Jesus talked about, but love is definitely 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, 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. 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. We’ll hear some of that farewell prayer next week.
But in this farewell address, with the very limited time he has left with his followers, look where Jesus’ focus is: 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.
I read this week that when Martin Luther was asked how he pictured God, he 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 clearest, 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.
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 doesn’t only look like 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.
You can’t show love without giving something up, whether it’s time, money, effort, attention. That’s not a bad theme for Mother’s Day, or for Father’s Day, but you don’t need to be a parent to understand love involves sacrifice.
So with the limited time he has, Jesus tells us 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.”
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. 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 human minds are incapable of comprehending an infinite God. But God choose us. God comes to us. In Jesus Christ, God chooses to be revealed to you. God shows you love beyond comprehension.
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.
But all of that is in service to the fundamental command Jesus gives us: Love as we have been loved. Do what Jesus tells us to do. Lay down your life, give of yourself, serve others. All you need is love. Abide in your Heavenly Father’s love.
Amen