There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. This is my command: Love each other.
John 15:13-17
In the paragraph above, Jesus speaks the supernatural language of love once again to His friends. He is about to partake in a human’s penultimate earthly act. Up to this point, Jesus does not know death, He ‘the all living’ is about to experience not existing. Later, as He cries out to His Father to “pass the cup from Him according to His will” the very image and love of His Father serves and strengthens His inner most soul. The very same friends He’s spent joys, sorrows, and marvelous experiences with are not by His side, neither are they praying for His pierced soul. Jesus requested beforehand to His friends to pray with Him before the last hours of His death, but its imperative understanding of the request is not within them. As His words were: Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. John 16:32
Alone, didn’t frighten the Son of God… alone meant a devoted time of surrender to His Father. Our sins on His shoulders causing the separation from His Father was ultimately what killed Jesus.
As a young child, I spent moments “alone” submerged in the creation of God, on top of a tree or staring at the sunset and singing. Alone meant, an exclusive and required “you and I.” I don’t recall being afraid of the darkness or walking alone through darkness. This ideal ‘not feeling alone when we are physically alone’ has helped me reach high levels of joy. It has created in me the image of the best friend one can always count on: Jesus, the Son of God, our friend.
Jesus, the ultimate cheer leader, team’s captain, and supporter of all times can be a best friend to the friendless, selfish, and unlovable: each one of us. Speaking to His friends he says, “These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. John 16:33.” That summary of separation from the Father is about to be heart-felt by His disciples prior to and after His death on the cross, yet He clearly notes “but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world.” Meaning you no longer have to experience what I am going through, you no longer need to experience separation from the Father but have complete access to Him through me. There are no longer any sacrificial rituals for you to follow, but the same access that I have to my father, you now have. This is the peace that He refers to when He says “that in me ye might have peace,” ultimately death is about to be conquered by His life. Jesus’s death experienced all of the suffering and pain combined in earth’s entire history: the past, present, and future. All the suffering that we have experienced has already been experienced by Him. What this means is that Jesus already died and paid the ransom for our wrong doings, and what someone else has wronged us with, in order for us to live eternally. In a practical level, we don’t need to pay to stay alive, we are commanded to live it fully by “loving each other.”
The task that Jesus commands us with is supernatural and impossible to do without His character. This is the reason why the Godhead sends the comforter ‘The Holy Spirit’ after Jesus’s return to Our Father. The Holy Spirit’s role is to live in each one of our hearts, and guide our minds with wisdom from above. The Holy Spirit convicts us each time we feel guilt of some sort for what we are about to do. Our Father and Friend have the solution for us to experience love and life the way it was supposed to, free from sin, and full of everlasting joy. Each one of us is called to have an excellent spirit, the character of Jesus Christ. We ought not to fall short, for he has created us a little lower than the angels! As David’s praise reads: When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; that is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour. Psalm 6:3-5.
We are Our Father’s workmanship, created with His standards engraved and portrayed through His Son’s life in our hearts and sealed in our minds through His excellent Spirit. The Father as much as The Son cherish to spend eternity with you and I. As Jesus revealed to His disciples then, we are not called His servants but His friends. Being a friend of God is life-saving. Obtaining such understanding is the only way to experience no fear, but peace, joy, and love.
May your understanding of His love free you from human expectations and embark you to live fully! Jesus has chosen you, it is up to you to choose Him back.
Tapia 