A Sense of Awe (2)

Scripture 

My command is this: love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no-one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” (John 15:12-15 NIVUK) 

A Sense of Awe (2) 

Last week I mentioned the phrase “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth” and Marilynne Robinson’s sense of awe about the person who first put that idea to papyrus. The other morning, I had a similar reaction to a couple of phrases in Jesus’ final conversation with his friends before his arrest. 

You are likely worn out by the central place Jesus’ words “I no longer call you servants, I call you friends”, which have been my central motivation for Touchstone’s life. After all these years I heard the line preceding this as though it was for the first time; “Greater love has no-one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”.  

The writer first put those thoughts to papyrus, perhaps after much discussion with his fellow apostles long after the events of the crucifixion, resurrection and ascension had occurred. With a sense of wonder, looking through the lens of the cross he realized his friendship with Jesus came from Jesus laying down his life for his friends – not worms, not worthless ones. 

Jesus asks no more from us than he expected of himself – to love, to lay down our agenda for friends, who are not targets to be fixed, changed, or repaired. Out of that, much redemptive fruit grows. Our friendship with God is identified by our love for one another as friends.  

A Prayer Of Wonder

Late have I loved you, O beauty ever ancient, ever new! Late have I loved you and behold, you were within, and I without, and without I sought you. And deformed, I ran after those forms of beauty you have made. You were with me, and I was not with you, those things held me back from you, things whose only being was to be in you. You called, you cried, and you broke through my deafness. You illumined, you shone, and you chased away my blindness. You became fragrant and I inhaled and sighed for you. I tasted, and now hunger and thirst for you. You touched me and I burned for your embrace. (A Prayer from St. Augustine)