This is my command, so you’d all love one another just as I love you. Nothing has as great a love as one who puts his life in the hands of loved ones. When you all do as I command you, you’re my loved ones— I no longer call any of you slaves. The slave knows nothing about what his master does. I’ve called all of you “loved ones” because I made known to you what I heard from the Father. None of you chose me, but I chose you and arranged things so you’d come under me and produce fruit, and your fruit might stay— so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he’d give to you. That’s why I commanded you to love one another. —Jesus,
Jesus’s teachings frequently get reduced to platitudes: “Love one another.” “Real love is dying for your friends.” “Show your love for Jesus by doing as he says.” “Jesus doesn’t call us servants, but friends.” “We didn’t choose him; he chose us.” “Whatever we ask the Father for in Jesus’s name, he’ll give us.”
Each of these things are true; I’m not knocking the wisdom of teaching them. But put together, they reveal something deeper that Jesus wants to teach. They reveal the depth of the relationship that Jesus wants us to have with him and with one another.
Jesus started with the command for his students, his followers, to love one another. He reiterated it again in verse 17. It’s an important command; love is central to Jesus’s character, and those who truly follow him need to reflect and demonstrate that love to other people in order to be proper followers. Christians who lack love suck as Christians. (Christians who lack love are precisely the sort of Christians that most pagans point to when they want to explain why they have no interest in being or becoming Christians.)
However, unlike the motives of a slave following a master—do it or else!—Jesus wants the motives of his followers to be that of loved ones. Jesus wants love to happen organically: Love should be a natural byproduct of the love we were shown. Jesus doesn’t want our relationship to be a master/slave relationship, where he says “Jump!” and we do so without question for fear of his wrath or displeasure. He wants it to be one of loved ones, where he says “Jump!” and we do it without question because we trust him completely.
Hence his statement, “Nothing has as great a love as one who puts his life in the hands of loved ones.” Historically this has been translated, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Most folks assume “lay down his life” means “be willing to die,” and when they quote this verse they point to Jesus and say, “See, he laid down his life for his friends; he died for our sins.” But while laying down a life is part of putting your life in others’ hands, it’s certainly not all of it. Dying for others is easy: It’s a single decision, and it’s relatively quick to carry out. Heck, people will do it for strangers—fire fighters rush into burning buildings, lifeguards risk dangerous tides, pedestrians push strangers out of the way of traffic. That doesn’t mean it’s not brave and admirable, and a form of love. But compare that with living for others—especially living with others, especially when the others aren’t helping. That’s hard. And that’s more obviously love.
Slaves, unless they were put in some supervisory position, were rarely expected to understand their masters’ orders. Too inefficient. It opens up the possibility that the slave might second-guess the master. So they were only told what they needed to know to get the job done. They could turn off their brains otherwise. But this is not how Jesus works… regardless of his many followers who voluntarily turn off their brains all the time in following him. And Jesus can work with them. He can use ignorant people. It’s not his ideal, though; he works with the foolish only because the wise won’t step up. But he doesn’t want to work with ignorant people. He wants to share with us everything that the Father told him. He doesn’t want slaves. Slaves would have to love him, or at least fake it convincingly, like a North Korean during their leader’s funeral. He wants friends with free will—he wants willing loved ones, who follow him because we have a stake in what the Father’s doing. We have a claim on the Kingdom.
Jesus pointed out, “None of you chose me, but I chose you.” Folks who are big fans of predestination like to point to that, pull it out of context, and say it’s true of Christians in general—that none of us chose Jesus, but that he chose us from the establishment of the world. And while that’s true, this verse here has nothing to do with predestination. Jesus was talking about the specific students walking with him to Gethsemane from where they’d just eaten their Passover seder. Jesus had hand-picked each of the Twelve, plus any of the other students following him at that time; and anyone who had eaten Passover with him would have been invited by him personally. These were the folks he chose to have with him when he was arrested. These were the folks he wanted to start his church with. He knew they’d scatter once the cops showed up, but he knew they’d remember everything he taught them, and that these were the right people for the job.
So he “arranged things so you’d come under me and produce fruit, and your fruit might stay.” Whatever they did for him wouldn’t be for nothing. And whatever they asked the Father for, using Jesus’s name, would be answered. All of this, of course, hinges upon the words “you’d come under me.” We have to be in Jesus before the Kingdom stuff can happen. We have to have a pre-existing relationship where we do what he tells us out of love. The Kingdom can’t grow any other way. It can only pretend to.
So you see, beneath all the platitudes is Jesus’s desire for us to base our Christianity on his love, and live in it, and be loved ones rather than slaves. It’s to love one another because love is who God is—and anyone who doesn’t love, isn’t God’s. So let’s grow in love.