Saturday, May 14, 2022

14 May 2022 - remain


As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.

He did not tell his disciples to earn his love. It was not the case that he gave them a small dose and then demanded an adequate performance if they were hooked and wanted more. It was rather that he already loved them and desired them remain open and centered in him so that he could continue to pour out more and more love into their hearts. The opposite of this remain was seen with Judas who "turned away to go to his own place". Jesus desired disciples who would remain in him even when they faced the temptation to put themselves first. He desired this because it was then that they would be filled with love, the love which Jesus himself received from the Father, whereas apart from him they would only have their own strength on which to rely, the limits of which Jesus expressed when he told them that apart from him they could do nothing (see John 15:5).

If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

With the mention of commandments are we back again to the idea of performing so as to earn? No, instead we are to see this as the response to love, a response by which we remain in love. Jesus himself knew that the commandment of his Father did not make him a slave as we might think, but rather, truly free, and fully alive. He said "And I know that his commandment is eternal life" (see John 12:50). Whereas most of us see the commandments as obligations to be met if we want something separate from them that is called eternal life, Jesus knew that the commandments were actually, when infused with the love that comes from God, the blueprint of that life itself.

I have told you this so that my joy might be in you
and your joy might be complete.

Imagine! Commandments are given to ensure that we can have joy, brim-filled, and spilling over! This is not how we think of commandments. But when we realize that they simply describe the boundaries of loving relationships it begins to make sense. The Holy Spirit himself is the only source of the fruit of joy. If we want it we will desire to be as protective as possible of that relationship. 

This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

It is true, however, that the commandment given by Jesus goes well beyond what we would consider to be the healthy boundaries of relationship. But that only reveals the limitations of our worldly ways of thinking. Anything less than what Jesus described results in a mercenary or mercantile system, based on what we can get from others and what they can get from us, where everyone is his or her own bottom line. This isn't even really a relationship. It never actually transcends the wall of the individual ego. Jesus said that no one had greater love than to lay down her life for another. It might be equally true to say, 'No one has lesser love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends', because only doing this is love at all.

It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

Jesus brought his teaching back to the fact that he was the one who initiated, he the one who first loved, and he the one who now gave the power by which a response could be made. He knew that the risk of explaining what love truly meant was that the ego would take that explanation and twist it into a work of the flesh, more onerous, more terrible than anyone had a right to expect. And from the egocentric perspective of the isolated self, yes, yes it was. It was by definition death to that perspective. But for those who would simply remain in the love that brought them into being, that revealed itself in Christ, the commandment of Jesus would by revealed to be the fullness of life.

You, Lord, who know the hearts of all,
show which one of these two you have chosen

We are not finally supposed to be about our own plans or our own work, but about the work for which the Lord himself has called us, responding to the love with which he himself has loved us. That love is both terrifying and wonderful. But anything less is not life, not really. Let us remain in his love.

From the rising to the setting of the sun
is the name of the LORD to be praised.






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