Abide in His Love

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Jesus said:] “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9-11).

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

It’s one of the shortest answers in the list of questions I require our catechumens to answer to be confirmed: “What, in one word, is the summary of all the commandments?” The answer: “Love.” It’s a short, simple answer. But it takes some repetition until they remember it. And even longer until they understand it. Why is that? I suspect it is because we generally use these words with different definitions in different contexts.

Love and commandments are not typically associated in our everyday conversations. Love is often seen as a universally positive concept, while commandments can be viewed as strict, authoritative, and overbearing. Yet, in today’s Gospel, Jesus intertwines the two, challenging our preconceived notions. Similarly, in the Epistle, we are reminded that loving God is synonymous with obeying His commandments. ‘And His commandments are not burdensome’ (1 John 5:3).

The key to understanding this relationship between love and commandments is always who and why. It would be burdensome if we were to love to become children of God and disciples of Christ. Today’s Readings can easily be misunderstood in just that way. Instead, we start from the standpoint that we have already been born of God. We are already God’s beloved children because Christ first loved us with the greatest love, to lay down His life for us. Then, because we are already Jesus’ friends, chosen disciples, and God’s children, we willingly, even joyfully, keep His commandments to love one another.  

What do you think of when you hear the word love? Do you think of a couple walking hand-in-hand on the beach? Do you think of Valentine’s Day and a warm fuzzy feeling in your stomach? Today, we want to understand that such a concept of love is just a tiny part of love. Today, we want to explore the motivation of Christian love, a love modeled after and empowered by the love of our Lord Jesus Christ.

What was love to our Savior Jesus? How would He define love? Jesus would not define love with words, but with actions: “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). “Having loved His own who were in the world, [Jesus] loved them to the end.… Then He poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples’ feet” (John 13:1, 5). “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (1 John 4:10). There you have it—that is love. For Jesus, love meant nothing apart from deeds. Jesus didn’t just speak love; He did love. Love for Jesus was sacrifice. Jesus sacrificed His time, energy, and personal comfort. He sacrificed His very life.

Jesus gave all this love to very unlovable, sinful human beings. Jesus didn’t choose us to love because we loved Him first. No, the disciples weren’t too good at that. Oh, they talked a good game. The night of our text—early that night—Peter and all the disciples were sure they’d make any sacrifice for Jesus, even die with Him.

Well, you know how that turned out. The disciples were good with love, that was words, but when it came time for sacrifice, to put their lives on the line, even their words bailed out: “I don’t know the man. I don’t know the man! I don’t know the man! No, Jesus didn’t choose to love the disciples because they chose to love Him. He’s quite emphatic: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you” (John 15:16).

But Jesus did choose you—you who were no more lovable and reliable than Peter. You who bail when it’s time to tell your friends, right out loud, when He’s mocked, “I love Jesus. He’s my Savior and God.”

Peter’s not alone in this failure, is he? You and I also have failed to love Jesus. We Christians very quickly become lax in our faith and life. We begin to depend on ourselves rather than on Christ. Or we may use Christian liberty as an occasion to sin or not to do what Christ says.

We weren’t lovable, but Jesus says, “I love you—your sins are forgiven.” Jesus says, “I love you—here is some fish and bread.” Jesus says, “I love you—get up and walk.” Jesus says, “I love you—I lay down My life for you, My friend.”

What is love to you? How would you define love? We wouldn’t define love with words, but with what? Why do we love? First of all, we love because God commands us to love. It’s not an option. Twice in today’s Gospel, Jesus does not suggest that we love—He commands us to love. Second, people know the disciples of Jesus by how they love. We want to be recognized as Jesus’ disciples, so we love. How do we love? We love as Jesus loved. Now, that’s a pretty tough order.

To love as Jesus loved means that we serve as Jesus served.

We love by sacrifice. We love not by words but by deeds. We love by laying down our lives for others. Not necessarily literally, but as we give of our time, comforts, and treasures, we are laying down our lives in love for others. I often use this example with couples in pre-marriage classes and marriage counseling. I tell them, “I like to think that I would be willing to take a bullet for my wife, Aimee, literally. But some days, I have a hard time being willing to take the garbage out when she asks me.” Laying down my life for others often means giving up what I want for the wants and needs of someone else.

Jesus’ commands are not intended to be burdensome, and they are not; they bring nothing but happiness. The purpose of God’s commands is to bring people to Jesus. Their joy will eventually be made full. We love just as Jesus loves us, which is very different from the love of the world.

We want to practice a love that doesn’t desire but gives. We love not to get something but to do something. Maybe we shouldn’t say, “I love you.” Perhaps we should say, “What can I do for you?” Love without sacrifice is nothing.

Whom do we love? Anyone for whom we sacrifice is someone we love, starting with our spouses, children, and friends. We can love people whom we don’t even know. We love the unloving. We love those who do not love us or even know us. We love as we do deeds in the name of Jesus Christ. We do because Jesus loved us first.

The sacrificial love of Jesus is hard for us to do. It takes open eyes to see the needs of others. How can you better love those at home, church, work, and neighborhood? Love because He loved you first. “What can I do for you?” is another, often better way, of saying, “I love you.”

We have opportunities for such loving service right here in our parish, community, and even the world. You can volunteer to help package the hygiene kits that Orphan Grain Train sends worldwide to places experiencing disaster. You could volunteer at the Pipestone County Food Shelf. You could provide respite care to give a family caregiver a break to attend to some of their own needs for a few hours. There are so many opportunities around us to love and to help our neighbor with our good works.

In his book, Thank, Praise, Serve, and Obey: Recover the Joys of Piety, William Weedon suggests that we learn to look for good works with “Easter egg eyes.” Do you remember the joy of hunting for Easter eggs? You go outside with your basket in hand. You squeal in delight when you spy a colored egg peeking out from under a bush? You run to get it, put it in your basket, and then search the horizon for another one. And then the next.

Have you ever thought of good works like that? They are lovely little surprises that God has strewn all around to delight us and give us Easter joy as we do them in love and service to our neighbor. Isn’t this how St. Paul describes them in Ephesians 2?

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked …  by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ … so that in the coming ages He might show the immeasurable riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Ephesians 2:1–10).

Paul makes it very clear: Your good works do not save you. God saves you by grace through faith—and even that faith isn’t something you come up with. It is His gift to you! God is the doer of the verbs. He loves you. He creates you anew through resurrection with Christ to a new life (through Baptism), also creating you anew for good works. He even prepares these good works for you beforehand. Even before you see or recognize the opportunity for good works, it was in God’s heart as a gift for you. By that good work, He lets you exercise the resurrection life planted in you in your Baptism. Do you see how this sets everything on its head? We like to think of good works as works we do for God’s sake. That’s backwards! Good works are actually gifts that God gives us.

What is the essence of these good works, these gracious opportunities to live the resurrection life? It boils down to one word, so abused and misunderstood: love. By “love,” we are not talking about the emotional high that people often think of, Hollywood’s vacuous kind of love. It is, instead, God’s love for us in Christ Jesus that stirs us to love and care for one another. This love helps us perceive that the opportunity to serve and do good is a gift handed to us from the Father, who, by this gift, is inviting us to get in on spreading His love.

Jesus said:] “As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love” (John 15:9-11).

Go in the peace of the Lord and serve your neighbor with joy. You are forgiven for all your sins.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version, copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.