Reading
John 15:9-11
9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 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. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.
Comment
Even knowing that his passion is near, Jesus has no doubts about the Father's love for him and assures his disciples of his love, exhorting them to remain in it.
Jesus does not refer to a purely emotional state, but above all to obedience: "If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love" (v. 10).
The model of our obedience must be Jesus' obedience to the Father; as this is the reason for the joy of Jesus, believers who obey his commandments experience the same joy.
Love, not fear, is, therefore, the foundation of obedience to the gospel. This is the love which the heart of man desires to receive and give in abundance and which finds in communion with Christ the quality and quantity of the love with which the Father and the Son love each other. To renounce this love means to abandon joy. Finding and cultivating it fills our deepest aspirations.
Prayer
Guide us, o Lord, to the fullness of joy, through the ways of your commandments, driven by the love that you yourself give us. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
