The Switch…

To Joy (part 2) 

When Jesus told his disciples in John 15:11, “I told you this so that my joy may be in you,” in the very next verse he said, “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”    

Is loving each other the clue, then, as to how his joy is created in us? Well, why not, when in this life – even without belief in Jesus – good friends and a loving family are a great source of joy. So is Jesus talking about something similar – but – expanded to an even higher level in our experience? 

It would seem so, because the love he’s talking about is on a much higher level too. It’s based on how “I have loved you.” And what kind of love was that? Well, he’d just told his disciples back in verse 9, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you,” so he loved them with the same love his Father had for him. This was an extraordinary love, then.  

So how amazing is it when Jesus tells his disciples, “You can love each other with that same love too”? Jesus is saying we can experience being able to love at the same level God loves. And when we can, and do, that’s how we experience his joy.   

Is it any surprise, then, that since God’s love is what paves the way to his joy, that Jesus goes on to explain in verse 13 what lies at the very heart of God’s love? And it’s this, that “There’s no greater love than laying down your life for your friends.” And if anyone knew the truth of that, Jesus did, because that’s exactly what he was about to do for his disciples whom he called his “friends” in verse 14. 

But how could there be joy in an agonizing death on a cross? Well, according to Hebrews 12:2, it was “for the joy set before him that he endured the cross.” Jesus knew what the ultimate expression of love, giving up your life for your friends, would create. It would create joy. Because this was how his Father had set things up, that his ultimate goal was a joy-filled family forever, the key to which was so obvious, that we humans love each other with the same love he has for us. 

Jesus did that and it brought him joy – and especially the joy of knowing his death would open up the door to us being able to love as he loves, and the joy for us too that would come with it…(continued on Friday)