Jn 15:12-17
[Jesus said to his disciples,] 12“This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. 13No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command you. 15I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. 16It 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. 17This I command you: love one another.”
NO ONE HAS GREATER LOVE THAN THIS, TO LAY DOWN ONE'S FRIENDS. Why is this the greatest love? Why not when one dies for one’s country? Or, is not the greatest love to lay down your life for your family? Every day we give our lives for our children. We clothe them, feed them, spend for their education, and watch over them. Is a friend still greater than our children?
The secret invitation behind this saying of Jesus, I believe, is this: we should treat one another as friends—parents and children included. We should deal with everybody, even our country, as our friend. We should regard our parents as friends, not as providers or strict policemen. We should see God as our best friend, and not as an absentee Creator looking at us from a distance.
We are our normal selves with friends. Friends are easier to love and understand and bear with. They are remembered, so easy to please, so much fun to be with. Thus Jesus calls us friends, not slaves. He invites us to treat and consider one another as friends. Then it is easy to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
God bless our many friends!