John 15:12-13
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you.
"What a Friend we Have in Jesus," is a popular traditional hymn expressing the sentiment we have with our savior. The gospel reading from today reflects that love as Jesus reminds his followers that He calls them friends. In fact, the overarching theme today is "Love",--love for the Father and love for one another. The word love appears 8 times in this passage. Jesus is preparing his friends for what is to come. He reminds them that he calls them friends and that a friend will lay down their lives for each other. They know that he is the Messiah and Lord, but Jesus doesn't want to come across as the ruling taskmaster over a slave. We are to follow Gods commandments, not as slaves, but as friends. Jesus desires a deeply personal relationship with all of us. For many, that can be difficult to comprehend. All of us have friends that we can see, touch, talk to, laugh and cry with. But we don't see Jesus in the human form, that we may want…but then again, maybe we do. We see Jesus in the Eucharist, we see and touch him in other people. We can talk to him in quiet times, even laugh and cry with him in the chapel. To do this, we have to take some time to quietly listen and open our hearts to what he tells us. Most of us have acquaintances, and maybe a couple of real friends. Most of us have heard of Jesus, but don't really know him. Is Jesus your acquaintance or a real friend? Your life will be better off if he's the latter. Open your heart like you would to a personal friend, and make Jesus your Lord, your savior and your friend.
