Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends. John 15:13
What do you think of when you run across this verse? What comes into your mind?
A pretty common thought is something like someone pushing a child out of the way of a speeding vehicle or jumping between the business end of a gun and another person—only to be killed themselves. This is an example of the ultimate sacrifice, the laying down of one’s life for another.
This concept is found in the gospel of John, amid the disturbing warnings and comforts Jesus offered His disciples just before His crucifixion. After that strange last supper, after Judas left to do who knew what, after Jesus told Peter that he himself would soon be betraying Him, Jesus dropped this statement about the greatest kind of love.
Does this mean we are supposed to always be on the lookout for speeding cars to away from which to shove children? This used to be my unexamined idea, and I don’t think it’s invalid. I would say that jumping to save others from certain injury or death is an instinct that some bear more strongly than others. Most of the time I think if I was on hand in such an incident, I’d be the horrified bystander who just couldn’t get there in time—just a little too slow on the uptake and not quick enough to act the right way.
The majority of us will probably go our entire lives without finding ourselves in such a split-second situation. Are we thus unable to participate in a giving of the greatest kind of love?
There’s another kind of sacrifice that could qualify for laying down one’s life.
I think of in-the-trenches, year-after-year activism, in which family and friends, personal comfort, or a stable income are second to the emotional, mental and physical work of bringing attention to the oppressed and disassembling that oppression.
Or perhaps life-long missionaries, who perhaps grew up on the mission field and return there, or who at whatever point in life seek to spend their years somewhere other than “home,” trying to represent the love of Christ in that community and culture. These, too, forego potentially fantastic careers and often risk their physical safety on a regular basis.
Then there are caretakers who didn’t choose the situation but who choose to stay in it. They refuse to abandon someone with deep dependence, opting instead to care, feed, wash, encourage, and be there. They grind it out day after day with very little respite, sometimes for unresponsive or ungrateful or even abusive individuals, at the expense of their own plans, their own pocketbooks, and their own well-being, physical and otherwise.
These folks certainly lay down their lives for others. But what about the rest of us? We’re trying to maintain a job that pays enough and doesn’t suck away our souls, trying to find ways to get along with our families and neighbors and have a few acquaintances close enough to call good friends. Maybe we’ve tried to hear from God and honestly don’t feel like He’s directing us to the mission field or to any other consuming cause. Are we supposed to pick something serious enough and pour our lives into it? Or just carry on with the life in front of us and feel vaguely guilty because we haven’t done anything that seems all that sacrificial?
Here’s where I’ve found myself lately.
Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.
This verse in John is in the context of John 15, the passage about abiding in the vine, that is Christ Himself. The instructions lead from abiding in Jesus (v. 4) to abiding in His love (v. 9), therefore keeping His commandments (v. 10), which significant commandment is that we love one another (v.12).
Abiding in Christ used to be hard for me to understand—probably unnecessarily so. But I’ve come to the realization that I kind of know now how it is that I abide in Christ.
When I have a chunk of time, I spend it with God—reading, praying, listening, thinking, writing, being still. Instead of—what would I do? Read more fiction. Make flannel quilts. Spend more time at coffee shops with friends? Try more paper art? Watch more TV? Let an hour slide past with a game on my phone?
Also, I turn to pouring out my heart in prayer, into Scripture and praise when I am stressed out, instead of diverting into a book or TV or social media nonsense. Instead of dwelling on the hurt, I go to lay it out, the good, the bad, the ugly, my faults, their faults, my wishes, God’s promises. I surrender my preferences for what I know to be God’s preferences. I set myself to be OK with not seeing the whole just now, not seeing the resolution, but content to trust and wait on God.
Lest I give the impression that I’m some perfectly-willed and extremely irritating camel-knees who never takes a moment of personal fun … let it be known that more often than not, my whiny, self-pitying stuff wins and I don’t turn aside. But this last couple years the stressors have been more immense, the pain deeper and the stakes higher. And at this age, I’ve been around the block enough times to acknowledge that
My instinctive coping skills don’t make anything better at all, they just push issues to the side for a while.
Things do go better when I do turn deliberately toward Christ instead of stew or ignore.
So these days it takes me less time to remember to get quiet with God. I know what to do now, when I do turn aside—which Bible to grab, which passage to start with, how to center myself down. I’ve had definite practice in seeing how my personal tendencies can distort my efforts to relate to God and some effective practice in cutting through my own crap to the place of genuine presence.
I like it here. I can see myself more clearly. I can see Jesus more clearly. I don’t always get here, but I’m coming to prefer it here. Turning away from my own sources of comfort and instruction toward Jesus.
For me, this is abiding.
Please hear me: I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with reading, making quilts, messing about with paper and scissors and glue, with coffee shops and friends or TV or phone games. One of my favorite pastors said more than once that sometimes the best thing you can do about a hard situation is to rest. Along with a good nap, I’ve got no problem considering these activities to be rest for me.
However, I see very clearly that I have a choice about where to invest my time for the long game. The use of this time matters critically. It shapes what flows from me because of where I spend that time.
What flows from me when I’m in that impossible situation of bearing baseless accusations and rage because someone else has made poor choices? Do I rage back and dwell on how wrong they are, or do I let that hurt slide on over to Jesus Christ so I can remain and serve?
What flows from me when I’m out in public and see someone sitting on a curb, head hanging? What flows from me when I listen to a conversation full of bitter vindictive about leadership?
What would Jesus do? I have better ideas now than before I pursued deliberate abiding. I’m learning options at His feet that are markedly different than what I usually come up following my natural tendencies.
Current culture would tell me to cut the negative out of my life, walk away. Laying down my life for another tell me to speak peacefully and remain, holding space for the other to be freed from the demons that drive them. I hold that space in the staying and serving and in the pouring out and submitting before God when the pain piles up.
Current culture would tell me to join in the fray, canceling the idiots who disagree with me and take the stance of the injured righteous. Laying down my life for another tells me to mind the impetuous and careless words coming out of my mouth, pray for those who present themselves as my enemies, mourn the divisiveness, and seek to defend what really matters in a Christ-like way.
Do I know what really matters? More and more, I’m not sure I do, and I have to get away and go abide for a while.
And He was saying to them all, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, this is the one who will save it. Luke 9:23-24
For me, it’s all boiling down to this. I give up my life to abide, and as I abide, I know better how to give up my life for others. Some people will find themselves to be the hero of a life-or-death split second’s action, and some people are wired to give up the conventional for a higher calling. Every one of us, however, is accountable to Jesus’s commandment to take up our cross daily, to lay down our lives for others.
This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command you…. This I command you, that you love one another. John 15:12-14, 17
Toward the promise,
Lana
A prayer to pray for caretakers
November is National Family Caregivers Month. I see you, Judy, Trish, Jeannie, Linda, Chris, and others I can’t think of just now.
I see you.
God in Heaven,
Please care for ____, who is caring for someone else.
Daily pour out Your wisdom, courage, and strength.
Help her* to love her charge with the love of Christ, whatever that may mean moment by moment.
Help her to know deeply that you do not judge her because she often struggles to be calm and kind, because she often has no idea what to say or what needs to be done.
Help her to lay down guilt, resentment, fear, frustration, and anxiety that so greatly multiply the burden.
Comfort her in her weariness and grief, in her hanging on by her fingernails and in her moments of meltdown.
Cover over her with tangible experience of your immeasurable and unconditional love.
Give her peace that You know that she is just one person, human and broken and trying the best she can.
Give her restful and healing sleep.
Give her something to brighten each day just enough.
Send someone to recognize her and care for her.
Give her time to get with You and find her stable center.
Remind her of the goodness in the world out there and give her hope for better days.
Thank you for your comfort, peace and grace, Father God.
In Jesus’ name, Amen
*Because the majority of caregivers are women.
Through the Bible in a Year Reading Plan and Challenge
In my world, the book of Hebrews is a big glug of water when I’ve been accustomed to comfortable sips of the shorter epistles. It stretches my throat and is hard going down and makes me wish I’d been a little more conscious of what I was sucking in. I have to pause a minute, then start over more carefully.
Does that make any sense? It doesn’t make any sense to me why they stuck that fat one right there in the middle of all the shorts. They’re not sure who wrote it, so they placed it next to but not in the books Paul wrote, just in case he really did write it, to keep it from being off by itself. Does it matter who wrote it? I’m not sure.
At any rate, the book of Hebrews is, as the name implies, written to the Hebrews about why Christ’s new covenant is much better than the old covenant given to the Hebrews’ forefathers. In the same way Matthew draws forward so many Old Testament prophecies to show how Jesus is the Messiah, the writer of Hebrews also draws from the Old Testament to compare the old with the new. One of these days I’m going to find a book that describe these comparisons in more detail—looking at how all of the Jewish laws and observances served as shadows of the new, better, eternal covenant. Although that could be a lifetime study!
Sunday, November 7 Catch up and reflect
Monday, November 8 Jeremiah 35-37, Hebrews 1
Tuesday, November 9 Jeremiah 38-39, Hebrews 2
Wednesday, November 10 Jeremiah 40-42, Hebrews 3
Thursday, November 11 Jeremiah 43-45, Hebrews 4
Friday, November 12 Jeremiah 46-48, Hebrews 5
Saturday, November 13 Jeremiah 49-52, Hebrews 6
Question for this week’s reading: What verse describes the word of God in a rather uncomfortable way?
Here are links to a couple past issues you might enjoy If Adam and Eve hadn’t blown it and Guilt means you’re doing something wrong, right?
If any of these articles provoke or comfort you, think of someone else who could use some food for thought and share. Click this blue button just below—sharing is easy!