START WITH SCRIPTURE:
John 15:9-17
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OBSERVE:
Many of the Johannine themes are included in this passage (Johannine refers to the Gospel and the three letters written by John):
- The relationship of the Father with Jesus.
- The love commandment.
- The deep inner joy that is the consequence of that love.
- The sacrificial death of Jesus.
- His personal relationship with his disciples.
- The knowledge that Jesus has imparted to his disciples.
- Jesus’ choice to call the disciples so that they may bear fruit.
Here, as in 1 John, we have a fugue-like interweaving of these themes.
All of this stems from the relationship of Jesus with the Father. The Father initiates love to the Son, and the Son includes his followers in that love. And the Son implores them to remain in his love.
This is the great commandment that is given in the Gospel of John — that they love one another. Love is the source of the deep joy that defines the life of a follower of Jesus.
So, it may seem paradoxical to us that Jesus follows these statements about love and joy with what we might interpret to be a “downer”:
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.
We must bear in mind the setting of this discourse. In John 13, as the Passover Feast approaches, Jesus and the disciples gather in the Upper Room. They are together for the last time before Jesus is arrested, tried, and nailed to the cross.
So Jesus is essentially telling them, “If you want to know what my love looks like, watch my life — and my death — on your behalf. That’s love.”
Interestingly, Jesus elevates his disciples from servants to friends in this passage. It is interesting in part because this passage is a section of that long discourse that is introduced when he washes the feet of his disciples. There he shows them by example that to be his disciple is to be a servant:
If I then, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Most certainly I tell you, a servant is not greater than his lord, neither one who is sent greater than he who sent him. (John 13:14-16).
The basis of his friendship with the disciples is found in his sacrificial love, but also in his self-disclosure:
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant doesn’t know what his lord does. But I have called you friends, for everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you.
Jesus also returns to the subject of his decision to choose the disciples that he introduced earlier in John 6:70:
Didn’t I choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil?
And again in this sermon that begins with the washing of feet, he has said in John 13:18:
I don’t speak concerning all of you. I know whom I have chosen. But that the Scripture may be fulfilled, ‘He who eats bread with me has lifted up his heel against me.’
It is important to note that Judas was without a doubt the devil to whom Jesus is referring in John 6:70. But note the timing of what Jesus says in John 15:16:
You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you…
Judas has already been singled out by Jesus as his betrayer, and has left the Upper Room (see John 13:30). So those to whom Jesus is now speaking are the eleven who will form his core team for the task ahead.
Jesus is giving them his vision for their future ministry:
You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
Jesus is authenticating their ministry, and promising that they will be productive, and that they will find their “credit” to be good as they ask for anything from the Father by invoking his name.
As we learn throughout Scripture, the name of the Lord is holy and powerful in that it represents the identity of the Lord. Likewise the name of Jesus is holy and powerful because he is identified with the Father.
And in this passage we are reminded of the bottom line in Christian doctrine and ethics:
I command these things to you, that you may love one another.
APPLY:
Attempting to apply all that is included in this passage would require several chapters!
Once again, we are reminded that the love commandment is the law of the Kingdom of God. All other obligations and precepts and duties flow from that.
And as we begin to apply these words to ourselves as followers of Jesus, we may rightly ask ourselves, “have I the love of the Father in my heart? Do I love other disciples? Do I love my neighbor? Do I love my enemy?” That is the single most affirming or damning criterion that can be used to measure our discipleship.
From this love, and from our knowledge of the teachings of Jesus, comes our own friendship with Jesus. Those who recognize that Jesus has laid down his life for us as well as for the disciples, and those who act on that love by responding in faith, are his friends.
And as always this is not only a vertical relationship with God but also a horizontal relationship with others. This is all good stuff.
However, there is one statement that Jesus makes that may raise our eyebrows a bit:
You didn’t choose me, but I chose you, and appointed you, that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain; that whatever you will ask of the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
The difficult part isn’t that we will bear fruit. He has already established that promise in the earlier part of the same chapter:
I am the vine. You are the branches. He who remains in me, and I in him, the same bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing (John 15:5).
But what does it mean to be chosen? This concept has been called “election” by theologians. Does it mean that some are chosen and others are not? Actually, Jesus has already established that he chose all of the original twelve disciples, but one of them was to betray him. Could it be that he chooses all of us, but that what we do about his choice is up to us?
This delicate and controversial debate has divided the church for a long time, summed up in the buzz words “predestination” and “free will.” I won’t be able to resolve it here. I will simply say that it seems to me an expression of his love for all the world, as John 3:16 says, to say that God has chosen to love all of us. However, we may or may not accept his love. And we may betray him or deny him. God doesn’t condemn us. We condemn ourselves if we refuse his love.
Then there is the matter of prayer in Jesus’ name. Christians typically end a prayer with just this formula — “In Jesus’ name, amen.”
This is also a reiteration of what he has said earlier, and just as emphatically:
If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, you will ask whatever you desire, and it will be done for you (John 15:7).
It’s obvious that these words could be distorted to turn Jesus into a kind of Genii, who has to grant our wishes. But as many devout Christians will attest, not all our requests are granted. Moreover, like the Garth Brooks song says, “Thank God for unanswered prayers.”
We are asking for Jesus to fulfill our requests according to his nature and his name the way we might ask for a reference or recommendation from a powerful and influential colleague or employer. But the question is, are our prayers consistent with his nature? Are they loving, serving, fruitful for the sake of God? Or are they self-loving, self-serving, and only for our own sake? If the latter is true, is it not possible that we aren’t really praying “in Jesus’ name,” but instead are guilty of violating the Third of the Ten Commandments:
You shall not make wrongful use of the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not acquit anyone who misuses his name (Exodus 20:7, NRSV).
To make wrongful use of the name of the Lord is to try to use God’s name and nature to manipulate things to our own advantage, or to use God’s name as a kind of incantation or magic formula. It is to try to make God into our servant instead of us serving God.
So, yes, we are to pray for whatever we need in Jesus’ name. But that really means that we are to love Jesus, know his nature as his friends, and bear fruit for him. In other words, we are to pray in his name in a way consistent with his will. And his will is that we be filled with contagious joy that will touch the lives of others.
RESPOND:
Phew! That’s a lot to pack in just a few sentences! But overall it gives me a sense of wellbeing, knowing that Jesus’ love for me is intended to make me his friend, to be filled with joy, and to bear fruit that will last. And as far as I know, the only thing that will last beyond this world are human beings who are given eternal life through Jesus. So, my prayer is:
Lord, make me your friend! Fill me with your love and your joy, that comes from your friendship demonstrated in the way you laid down your life for me! May I bear the fruit that you would have me bear — not the fruit that rots and doesn’t satisfy. Amen.
PHOTOS: “Love...” by Daniel Lee is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic license.
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