SIXTH SUNDAY OF EASTER
Series B
Acts 10:34–48
1 John 5:1–8
John 15:9–17
The Lord Jesus Is with His Church in the Apostolic Ministry of the Gospel
The crucified and risen Lord Jesus is with His Church through the word of His apostles, who “are witnesses of all that he did.” He was anointed by God “with the Holy Spirit and with power,” and “he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil,” and so He was with those whom He sent “to preach to the people” (Acts 10:38–42). The Holy Spirit is bestowed on those who hear that apostolic preaching, who are “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ,” so that “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name” (Acts 10:43–44, 48). For as He came by the water of His Baptism, even to the blood of His Passion, so the Spirit testifies to the truth with “the water and the blood” in the apostolic ministry of the Gospel (1 John 5:6–7). By these means, Christ Jesus speaks to us, that His joy may be in us and that our “joy may be full.” For this purpose, He appointed the apostles to “go and bear fruit” in order to make known His divine friendship to us (John 15:11, 15–16). - Lectionary notes from the LCMS commission on worship.
Easter 6 - John 15:9-17
O God, the giver of all that is good, by Your holy inspiration grant that we may think those things that are right and by Your merciful guiding accomplish them.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. John 15:13-14
To the Apostles Jesus makes the strange conditional remark, You are my friends if you do what I command you. We usually don’t identify our friends based on their obedience to what we command them. It also doesn’t seem right that friendship is conditional. So we must come to realize what it means that Christ’s condition for friendship with Him is doing what He commands.
Christ was commanding His Apostles (and ultimately us) to love. He was not commanding a love brought forth from a spiritually dead person—that is impossible— but He was commanding a love made alive and empowered by His love. Christ had just explained how He empowers and inspires His command to love others: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you [v 12]. Jesus’ conditional statement of friendship—that if the Apostles would do what He commands, then they would be His friends—is actually founded upon their realization of His love. Thus the Apostle John would be inspired to succinctly summarize: We love because he first loved us [1 Jn 4:19]. Here we observe a domino effect: First He loves us, then we realize and believe in His love for us, we then love others, and finally we are labelled as Christ’s friends. All four of these are realized in a Christian’s life, but the first domino is His love for us; this gigantic domino initiates the movement of the other dominos.
Two Old Testament believers were, like the Apostles, called friends of God: Abraham (2 Chron 20:7) and Moses (Ex 33:11). They, like the Apostles, knew God’s love and were then empowered and inspired to love God and their neighbor. These two Old Testament friends of God, along with the Apostles as recorded in John 15, did not yet know the extent of God’s love. In our text Jesus indicates where His love will find its climax: Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. The love of Jesus will find its climax in His substitutionary death. That very evening when Jesus spoke these words, was the eve of His death. Jesus is on the verge of laying down His life for His friends; He will soon die for His Old Testament friends—including His Apostles—who trusted in Him and His love.
However, the love of Jesus is even greater than laying down His life for His friends. In his first epistle the Apostle John explains the universal purchase made by Christ’s sacrifice: He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world [2:2]. Indeed, Christ’s atoning sacrifice (propitiation) is for more than His friends, it is for the entire world. Yes, Jesus would lay down His life even for those who were unloving, for those who were not His friends! The Apostle Paul explained it to the Romans this way: Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us…For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life [5:6-8,10]. Did you perceive the love of Christ as set forth in these verses? Paul explains that among sinful humans one might dare to die for a good person, but Christ Jesus died for the ungodly, He died for us while we were still sinners, yes, while we were enemies (the opposite of friends) we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Not just God’s friends, but the ungodly, sinners, and enemies of God are those for whom Christ died. This then is the heart of the Gospel to be proclaimed to the world: Flowing from a love heretofore unimagined, Christ died for you!
Now, trusting in the Lover of our souls, let us love one another—even our enemies—as He also loved us. So we shall be called friends of God.
-Rev. Dr. Daniel J Brege
:9 καθὼς ἠγάπησέν με ὁ πατήρ, κἀγὼ [a]ὑμᾶς ἠγάπησα, μείνατε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ τῇ ἐμῇ.
As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love.
Abide -
Love - agape - how the Father loves is how Christ loves, by laying down his life.
:10 ἐὰν τὰς ἐντολάς μου τηρήσητε, μενεῖτε ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ μου, καθὼς ἐγὼ [b]τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῦ πατρός μου τετήρηκα καὶ μένω αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain / abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain / abide in his love.
"Keep the commandment" is keeping the Supper...this was spoken on the night he was betrayed. Now we see the love of the Father. See Matthew 28, "I am with you..." He IS with us in the Supper. This is where we are equipped.
See confessional address for M Thursday.
See Psalm 80:8-17
:11 ταῦτα λελάληκα ὑμῖν ἵνα ἡ χαρὰ ἡ ἐμὴ ἐν ὑμῖν [c]ᾖ καὶ ἡ χαρὰ ὑμῶν πληρωθῇ.
These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full (filled).
The things he had just spoken we're keep the commandment, the mandate, love.
12 Αὕτη ἐστὶν ἡ ἐντολὴ ἡ ἐμὴ ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους καθὼς ἠγάπησα ὑμᾶς·
This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
My commandment - love - Ephesians 5,
13 μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay / place down his life for his friends.
Jesus' obedience to His Father, a central theme of John. Friend lover. Jesus lays down his love for enemies. Romans 5
:13 "lay down his life" highest expression of love, "for his friends" Gk Hyper, "on behalf of"; giving one's life as a sacrifice for a friend.
14 ὑμεῖς φίλοι μού ἐστε ἐὰν ποιῆτε [d]ἃ ἐγὼ ἐντέλλομαι ὑμῖν.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
:14 We do not become Christ's friends through our obedience, but we obey Him because we cherish Him. See vs 16
15 οὐκέτι [e]λέγω ὑμᾶς δούλους, ὅτι ὁ δοῦλος οὐκ οἶδεν τί ποιεῖ αὐτοῦ ὁ κύριος· ὑμᾶς δὲ εἴρηκα φίλους, ὅτι πάντα ἃ ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου ἐγνώρισα ὑμῖν.
No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.
Friend = beloved,
16 οὐχ ὑμεῖς με ἐξελέξασθε, ἀλλ’ ἐγὼ ἐξελεξάμην ὑμᾶς, καὶ ἔθηκα ὑμᾶς ἵνα ὑμεῖς ὑπάγητε καὶ καρπὸν φέρητε καὶ ὁ καρπὸς ὑμῶν μένῃ, ἵνα ὅ τι ἂν αἰτήσητε τὸν πατέρα ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί μου δῷ ὑμῖν.
You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.
You did not select me I have chosen you that your fruit might remain...see post communion prayer..."in fervent love toward one another." His love shapes our prayers. He hears us according to his name/will.
17 ταῦτα ἐντέλλομαι ὑμῖν ἵνα ἀγαπᾶτε ἀλλήλους.
These things I command you, so that you will love one another. -
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