“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.”
(rf. Jn. 15:13 MEV)
Love is an interesting word, indeed. We often bat it around with little thought as to its real meaning. We say, “I love my team, I love my pet, I love this color, I love my spouse or children”, using the same word to speak of different types of relationships. In time past I have noted that the Greek language uses different words for different types of love, such as phileo for brotherly love, eros for love within an intimate relationship, and agapeo for the unconditional love that God has for us. Greek provides a clearer picture of the love in question.
In the passage above, Jesus gives His disciples an example of the greatest love imaginable in human understanding—a self-sacrificing love. The object of this type of love in context (“for his friends”), of course, relates directly to the followers of and believers in Christ. As His children, we are also considered “his friends” (rf. Jn. 15:14-15). As such Jesus was willing to give His life in place of ours, sacrificing Himself willingly so that in His death we might have life. We’ve seen this type of love exhibited between human beings before: a parent willing to face a wild animal or criminal with no thought of his or her own life in protection of the children; a soldier who throws himself on a live grenade to keep his buddies from getting hurt or killed. There are many examples of this type of love and these actions throughout history. What makes Jesus’ sacrifice of Himself on the cross even more potent is that He gave His life, not only for those disciples whom He loved without measure that had been with Him for three years of ministry, but also for the myriads of people who had not known Him personally, those who would make up His body, the Church, over centuries of time.
Since we have been provided this paragon of self-sacrificing virtue by Jesus, we need to recognize that this is the love we should also share with those who are our “friends”, including our families, obviously, but others beyond as well. Only when we are willing to sacrifice ourselves, our wants, dreams, visions and desires, even our own lives so that others will be blessed can we ever approach the love that Christ has for us. This is the calling of God upon each of us as His children. It is by sharing this kind of love with others that they can see clearly the love He has for them. Let us then commit ourselves to displaying this Christ-like love that the world may experience it as we have.