Why Jesus?…

In his own words (part 11)

In John 15:14 Jesus told his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command.” And by “friends” Jesus gave us two clues as to what he meant. 

The first clue is in verse 13, when he said: “There’s no greater love than laying down one’s life for one’s friends.” 

Calling his disciples “friends,” therefore, meant Jesus would die for them. And he wasn’t talking in context here about dying for the salvation of the world. He was talking to his disciples about dying for them: “I love you, my friends, and to prove it I’m going to be murdered for you.” 

That’s not normally what friends say to each other to prove their friendship. “I’ll take a bullet for you” is about as close as it gets, but that’s only facing the possibility of being killed. In Jesus’ case it was planned; he knew it was going to happen. And he wanted it to happen, so his disciples would know how much they were loved. That was the first clue, then, as to what Jesus meant by friends. 

The second clue he gives is in verse 15: “I have called you friends, for everything I learned from my Father I’ve made known to you.” He wanted them fully in the know as to what the Father had planned and how he was bringing it about. And Jesus, having come from heaven, knew it all – about life, death, hell, heaven, relationships, history, the purpose of life and creation. And by sharing it with his disciples, Jesus gave us the second clue as what he meant by “friends.”    

But how would being Jesus’ friends become real to his disciples? Jesus clued them in on that too, in verse 14: “You are my friends if you do what I command.” So what was his “command” to them? 

It was to “Love each other as I have loved you,” verse 12. In other words, express the same definitions of friendship to each other that he’d just expressed to them. Which of course would make his friendship real to them, because they were now living that friendship too. 

Loving each other like Jesus loved them, then, was the best clue of all as to what Jesus meant by “friends”…(continues Friday)