6TH SUNDAY OF EASTER (B)

As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. 

Jn 15:9-17 

v. 7. As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.

The whole sentence, imperative included, is in the aorist tense (Greek grammar). The first two clauses are thus made to refer to the finished act of love by which Jesus, in his life, death and glorification, manifested the love of the Father. The imperative in its aorist form makes the injunction especially emphatic.

v. 12. This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.

Commandment, not commandments. The whole set of injunctions that follow from the words and works of Jesus can be stated in this one implication: Christians owe love to one another. This is not a narrowing from universalism into a Christian, ecclesiastical parochialism; rather it is a binding together of the whole body of disciples in order that their mission to the world might be more effectively undertaken.

v. 13. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.

Again, this is not to narrow the range of the love of Christ, or of his disciples. In a gospel which speaks of God's love for the world (3:16, etc.) and of Jesus as him who takes away the sin of the world (1:29) it is not likely that Christian love would be so restricted. But the love kindled within the Christian fellowship will, like the Savior's love, work for the saving of the world.

v. 15. I no longer call you slaves, because a slave does not know what his master is doing. I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.

A master, or 'Lord', can give orders to his slaves and expect to be obeyed. By the reversal of roles which Jesus had assumed at the supper, he showed that this was not to be his relationship to his disciples. Rather has he come to where they are and obliterated the distinction between master and slave. So he can be nothing other than their' friend', one who naturally confides his hopes and purposes to those he loves.

v. 16. It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.

It was not you who chose me:
This makes it plain, for those at the Last Supper and for every generation of disciples since, that, however much things may appear, and even feel, to the contrary, it is Christ who has chosen them to be disciples, not they themselves; The initiative in Christian life is with the Lord.

And appointed you to go and bear fruit:
This saying reflects the imagery of the vine, which in turn reflects the symbolism of the wine at the Eucharist. All the more reason, therefore, to see in the use of “to go” a reflection of the fact that the Son is about “to go” to the Father. The going of the disciples into the world will demand sacrifice, too. And it is by sacrifice that fruit is borne; the death of the Son is a prerequisite of the gospel being preached, and of the Gentiles hearing of the saving acts of God (cf. 12:20ff.).