“No one shows greater love than in laying down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13
You've probably heard that one. “Greater love hath no man…” It’s catchy, even if you take out King James and the sexism of the language and the poetry and reduce it to, as John says, “Self-sacrifice for your friends is the highest form of love.”
He’s wrong though. Self-sacrifice for your friends does indeed show your great love for them, but try sacrificing yourself for your enemies. Jesus was hardcore. Dying for your friends is easy; what about doing something really hard like living through torture and pain for them.
“Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.” It is right and fitting to die for one’s country. Jesus didn’t say that, by the way, despite what some people might think. Nor did he say, “You don’t win a war by dying for your country; you win by making the other poor bastard die for his.” Neither did Patton, although it’s a good line.
Jesus said you have to turn the other cheek, love your enemies, and die for people who hate you.
Soldiers tend to take Horace and jam it together with John and apocryphal Patton and come up with, “The best thing you can do is to die while fighting for your country alongside your friends.” Jesus wouldn’t touch that one with a ten-foot pole.
Remember the line that comes before that one in John 15. “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” Not, “Fight on!” Not, “Defend each other with your lives!” Just, “Love each other.”
I’m reminded of another great pair of theologians who, after considering the wealth of knowledge the world has created and the great thinkers of all time, were able to sum up the greatest commandments as follows: “Be excellent to each other and party on, dudes!” I don’t want to put too fine a point on that, but looking at it, you’ll notice one thing: there’s no mention of dying. In fact, you can’t continue being excellent to each other, to say nothing of partying, if you’re dead.
So is it the greatest love to die? True, if given a choice between your own death and that of your friends, the loving thing to do is to choose to die yourself. But is it the highest calling of love?
Love is patient, or so Paul told the Corinthians in one of my favorite parts of the Bible. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Surprisingly, Paul didn’t go on to say, ‘Oh, also, all of that is good, but dying is better. Love dies for what it loves.” No, Paul’s love is in for the long haul. Always… always… always… always. Not, “until it’s called upon to die for its friends at which point it can stop because that’s the big enchilada.”
A lot of Christians go in for plenary substitution, the idea that Jesus died to save us. It’s us he’s talking to in John 15, they say. We’re supposed to love each other because he died for us. He died for our sins. He was a sacrifice to an angry God… who so loved the world that he somehow caused himself to be born from a virgin and then suffer and die to placate his own wrath. That’s love, right? Maybe the Holy Ghost somehow makes it fit together better. The Trinity is mysterious, right?
But they must be right, because that’s what’s in the Bible. Jesus died for your sins. It’s right there in black and white, right there in that passage surrounding John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” Right there… in between the words somehow. "For God so loved the world that he gave his son so his son could die for you.” Right?
No, that’s not what it says. It says God loved the world so much that Jesus was sent to save the world. Through him, it says, through belief in this savior, death will have no power. Dying for love won’t mean anything because love doesn’t want death. Love doesn’t die. Love is eternal. Believe in love and it won’t end like this.
Jesus died. That’s a pretty inescapable spoiler in the New Testament. But then he wasn’t dead; that’s a harder thing to grasp. Except he told you exactly what that means. “...that whoever believes in him shall not perish…” Love doesn’t die. That takes some belief; Jesus not dying takes a fair amount too. But our own love never dies either, even as we do. No one has come back and proved that; in fact, you can’t really prove, “never,” or, “always.” But Jesus is asking for your belief in love’s eternal power. Jesus is asking you to spend your entire life living on Good Friday but to believe that Easter Sunday always follows.
Sure, some people latched onto the Good Friday part and became convinced that that was what this Jesus guy was all about. Good Friday, death, dying, sacrifice: that’s love to these people. Jesus’ power was in dying, because that was how he showed his great love for us, his power. God died. Love died. And it’s hard to fault them for thinking that, because we’re living on Good Friday. And it corrupts their thinking until they believe that pain and suffering are a good thing, that that’s what God wants from them, that that’s the best way to love God. “Offer it up,” they say as they earnestly believe that Jesus wants to take their lives.
But that’s not what he said. He said, “Love one another as I have loved you.” Not, “die for one another as I have died for you.” Not, “die for me as I have died for you.” Not, “suffer for me as I have suffered for you.” He doesn’t ask us to do anything but love each other. “Be excellent to each other,” he might have said had he shown up in San Dimas instead of Abraham Lincoln (that’s not a stretch, is it?).
Love doesn’t die. Love is eternal. Believe in that and you shall not pass away. Believe in Easter Sunday. Believe that love goes on, because that will save you. That will make your love powerful. That will bring you closer to God.
