07 May 26 | Remain in My Love
The abiding Jesus commands in the vine and branches is now named for what it actually is — love of the same order as the Father's love for the Son.
The Gospel: John 15:1-8
⁹ "As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.
Today’s Focus
The abiding of vine and branches is now named. It is love. Not a general affection but the same love the Father has for the Son, extended outward to the disciples. The kathōs — just as — is the same word that set the standard for the new commandment. The same love. Remain in it. The obedience that keeps a disciple within the love is not the condition for receiving it. The love is stated first. The obedience is the mode of staying within what has already been given. Jesus kept the Father's commandments. He remained in the Father's love. The cross is the fullest expression of that keeping. The disciples are invited into the same pattern. And the purpose of all of it is that his joy may be in them and their joy may be complete. Not happiness dependent on circumstances. The overflow of the divine life into the life of the one who stays.
In the Margins
Jesus has just described the vine and the branches, the abiding relationship that makes any fruitfulness possible. Now He names what the abiding relationship actually is. It is love. And the love He describes is not a general affection but a specific love with a specific origin and a specific measure.
As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
The word kathōs, just as, is the same word used in the new commandment of John 13:34 to set the standard for the disciples' love for one another. Here it sets the measure of Jesus' love for the disciples. The love Jesus has for them is of the same order and character as the Father's love for the Son. This is not a diminished version of divine love adapted for human recipients. It is the same love extended outward. John 17:26 will make this explicit in the high priestly prayer where Jesus asks that the love with which the Father loved the Son may be in the disciples and Jesus in them. The disciples are being drawn into the inner life of the Trinity, receiving the love that constitutes the divine relationship itself.
Remain in my love. The abiding of vine and branches now takes its most intimate form. To remain in the vine is to remain in the love. To bear fruit is to live within the love and let it overflow. The relationship is one, described from two angles.
The connection between love and obedience appears again here and it requires careful reading to avoid misunderstanding. Jesus says that keeping His commandments is how one remains in His love, just as He has kept the Father's commandments and remains in the Father's love. This is not a transaction where obedience purchases love. The love is stated before the conditional. I love you, Jesus says, and then He describes how to remain within that love. The obedience is not the condition for receiving love. It is the mode of staying within a love already given. This is the Catholic understanding of the relationship between grace and the moral life. Grace comes first. The moral life is the response that keeps one within the grace rather than the achievement that earns it.
The model Jesus gives is His own obedience to the Father. The disciples are not being asked to do something Jesus has not done. He kept the Father's commandments. He remained in the Father's love. The cross about to come is the fullest expression of that keeping, the total obedience to the Father's will even to death. The disciples keeping Jesus' commandments participates in and is patterned on the Son's obedience to the Father.
Then Jesus names the purpose behind everything He has said in the farewell discourse. He has told them all of this so that His joy may be in them and their joy may be complete. The joy He describes is first His own, the joy that belongs to the Son in His relationship with the Father, the joy of total love and total obedience expressed in the divine life. What He is offering is the extension of that joy into the disciples who abide in Him. Isaiah 35 speaks of everlasting joy upon the heads of the redeemed. The complete joy Jesus promises is that eschatological joy made present now in the abiding relationship. It is not happiness dependent on circumstances. It is the overflow of the divine life into the life of the one who remains in the love of the Son.
Reflection Question
Where are you currently trying to bear fruit from a branch that has been severed from the vine?
A Small Invitation
Is your obedience an attempt to earn the love or a response to a love you have already received?