Reflection on Today's Readings, Friday of 5th Week of Easter, Year B, May 7th, 2021
Texts: 15:22-31; Ps. 57:8-12; John 15:12-17
Yesterday, Jesus told us it was by keeping His commandments that we can abide in Him. Today He presents to us His commandments. He says, "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." This means He commands us to show His love to the world; we are to show the world how much He loves us and cares for us. Jesus wants to show the world through us how much He loves man and cares for him. By the commandment we are to be the bearers of divine love to the world; we are to be another christs to everyone we meet.
He goes further to tell us about the nature of the love He expects from us; it is not any kind of love. The kind of love He expects from us is the kind that is altruistic. He says, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." This means we are to live for others; we are to commit our lives to other's good. Laying down one's life for someone does not necessarily mean dying for the person but means to commit one's life to the person and this reaches its peak in martyrdom. Martyrdom is the highest demand for laying down one's life for another person. This kind of love is others centred with little or nothing to say about self. It is a kind of love that revels in sacrificing for others.
Jesus suffered and died for all but only His friends who appropriate the benefit of His passion. His friends are those who keep His commandments. He says, "You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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." As His friends, Jesus reveals to us the will of God. We become His friends by keeping His commandments while He makes us His friends by revealing the will of His Father to us. The keeping of His commandments is an embrace and open arm from us, while the revealing of His Father's will is an embrace and elevation from Him, an acceptance of our show of friendship. This does not mean that the initiative to be His friends is from us; our show of friendship by keeping His commandments is a response to His call for friendship.
Jesus reminds us that the initiative is from Him when He says, "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." Being the initiator, He sets the rules and we are to abide by the rules to remain in His friendship. We are to keep His commandments if we are to remain in His friendship. When we remain in His friendship, we will bear fruits, the fruits that abide, and whatever we ask in His name He gives us.
Today's first reading sets out the practical means of keeping the commandments of God. It reads: "For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols and from blood and from what is strangled and from unchastity. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.” This means we are to stay away from anything that can link us with other gods, we are to respect the sacredness of life, we are to be chaste, that is, to be faithful to one's state of life. We are to stay away from anything that can undermine the sacredness of life.
Lord Jesus Christ, you have called us to love as you have loved us, grant us the grace to love as you love, to love without counting the loss. Amen.
Fr. Andrew Olowomuke
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