NOTES for Joh 15:9-17

The Father’s love for the Son is manifested in their inseparable unity, and the Lord invites us to abide in the same love. Are we ready for such love — not even to love in this way ourselves, since it is clear that we are not ready for that, but to receive it from Christ? Receiving love cannot be passive; it demands efforts in response, but do we always respond actively to Christ’s love? Yet even when He receives no response, He continues to love us.

He called the disciples not servants but friends, and not only those who were beside Him, but all whom He called to follow Him. He wants to raise us to a height that is difficult to reach without Him; our heads already begin to spin before the ascent has even started.

But if we are not servants to Him, then we must not be servants to one another either. Yet we want to rule, and so it is hard to accept His gift; we feel compelled to repeat after the disciple: “depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” Christ can, in fact, withdraw if we persistently beg Him to do so; He does not impose Himself by force. But He comes as a liberator, and whoever rejects Him of their own will remains a slave to sin.