What kind of a relationship do we have with Jesus? Or, perhaps a better question, what kind of relationship does he have with us?
During the Easter season we’ve followed the gradual unveiling of the answer to this question. At first it was as companion and teacher (on the road to Emmaus), then as protector and guardian (the Good Shepherd), to source of life (the Vine), to the final incredible revelation we hear today – he is our lover. John has Jesus tell us directly, in so many words, “I love you” (Jn 15:9-17)
What’s more, he doesn’t love us because we love him – he chooses us, not the other way round. In our Second Reading (1 Jn 4:7-10), John further emphasizes this point: “In this is love: not that we have loved God, but that he loved us”. We can get very caught up in the idea that we should love God because of everything he has done for us. The problem with this perspective is that it treats love as a response, as something that is earned, something that is owed.
Even human love is not like that. Parents love their children, not because of anything they do or have done, but because they are their children. People fall in love for unfathomable reasons, but not because they do something to deserve it. Love is a force that comes from outside us. Love is the power of God acting in the world. John tells us: “love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God” (and one might add – “whether they realize it or not”).
So Jesus’ insistence that we should love one another is not like a rule that we have to obey. Rather it follows from our connection with him, our connection with God. Parents don’t choose to love their children, we don’t choose to love our life partners, that love happens to us.
Now, we do need to recognize there is a choice that we can make – we can choose not to love. Parents can choose not to love their children, you can choose not to love your partner, you can choose not to love your enemy. But if you make that choice then you are cutting yourself off from love, from the source of love, from the lover who chose you.
Accepting that God loves us, that he wants to be our lover, can be difficult. We can find all sorts of reasons to doubt this can really be true, often tangled up with a sense that we don’t deserve it. It can seem too good to be true. But it is true. And then it follows that we have to love each other.
We cannot be loved and not love – that would be like breathing in without breathing out. And when others experience our love they may also come to recognize the source of that love. In that way we “go and bear fruit that will remain”.