"I have called you friends"

14 November 2019: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 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. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.” --John 15: 11-17

Reading the Gospel of John this morning in preparation for tomorrow’s Bible as Literature class. Though I am tired and stressed, I am grateful for the quiet of this morning and the time to read the words above. I find myself moved by the Jesus that emerges in these pages: a man of peace, friendship, justice, sacrifice, and above all, love. None of this is new to anyone who has grown up in the church, but being reminded again—having the chance to read the words and be assured that Jesus is my friend and that he calls us to a life of love—is a welcome experience when times are hard.