Jesus said to his disciples:
"As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Not to the same degree that the Father loved Jesus, which was infinite, but in the same way, that is to say, perfectly. We are finite creatures but cannot find true satisfaction in a finite world. All love in this world is in some measure imperfect. And even such worldly love as is not defective on the part of the one loving is still insufficient to fully fulfill the beloved. They would eventually both find their resources exhausted as mortality eventually brought their love to an end. The lover could not say, except in poetic hyperbole, that her love was stronger than death. Unlike human love, the love of the Triune God is inexhaustible. Even though he pours himself out entirely to the Son, the Father is undiminished. And the Son, in reciprocating that love, also retains the fullness of his own identity. The divine interchange of love does not cause the Holy Spirit to run dry. Their love for us is like their own love for each other because it is entirely sufficient to perfectly fulfill those whom they love, and because, in spite of the greatness of the love they give, they give it without losing anything of themselves in the process. Such is the love that can only have its origin in God himself. And it is for this love, and nothing less, that we were made.
Remain in my love.
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.
Remaining in the love of Jesus is something different the the ongoing awareness of sentimental attachment. It is something concrete, something that implies a real difference, not only in how we feel, but in how we live as a response to that love. However, it is not the case that we must prove ourselves worthy of love by keeping the commandments. If we choose to remain in the love of Jesus we will have the grace to keep the commandments. His own love is what makes our own obedience possible. But he will not force us to remain in his love or keep his commandments. Yet the two are inseparable. We cannot say that we want his love but not his commandments when we know what those terms mean. It would be like an abusive husband telling his wife that yes, he wanted her with him, but that also wanted to continue to abuse himself through problematic habits of smoking, drinking, and gambling, and her as well, through violence either physical or emotional. Love is not merely an abstraction. Indeed, it is more than a mere absence of vice. It is a commitment to love the other as oneself, or even more. The commandments that come first, according to Jesus, are precisely the ones that insist on love, both of God and neighbor. All other commandments are only the logical consequences of these. To keep them does not always feel easy. But God himself makes it possible. The effort of going the extra mile might feel extreme. But to leave one's neighbor high and dry is clearly abhorrent. To not acknowledge God the who made us, in what we say and in what we do, is among the greatest of failures.
"I have told you this so that
my joy might be in you and
your joy might be complete."
Jesus insisted on our obedience because he himself knew that obedience was the secret of joy. He knew that the path to fulfillment and even to exaltation lay in conformity with the Father's will, in placing oneself perfectly in the service of the Father's plan. Jesus himself, "for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God" (see Hebrews 12:2). Because he was "obedient to the point of death ... God has highly exalted him" (see Philippians 2:7-9). He was only insisting on that of which he was certain from his own experience. Neither can we say that what he enjoined on us was a lofty but ultimately unlivable abstraction. He himself was tested in every way, and perfectly able to sympathize with our weaknesses (see Hebrews 4:15). This is our ground for hope. Joy is possible, because the love of Jesus makes it possible for each one of us. We must only desire it enough to respond by remaining open as he himself fills us with sufficient grace for every challenge.
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