5th SUNDAY OF EASTER (YEAR B)
Acts 10:25-27, 34-35, 44-48; Ps 97; 1Jn 4:7-10; Jn 15:9-17
COMMENTARY
Love and Mission
Today’s Gospel is a continuation of last Sunday’s discourse of Jesus, “the true vine”. Still immersed in the joy of the Easter season and mindful of what the Risen Lord exhorted us, a week ago, to abide in Him and His words, we continue our meditation on Jesus’ teaching for us today. Let us enter again into a kind of lectio divina of the passage, dwelling on practically every sentence of the passage, in order to grasp not only the relevant aspects of the content, but also and above all the heart of Jesus that beats behind every word whispered to his own, almost like a spiritual testament.
1. “As the Father has loved me, I also have loved you.” The ‘chain’ of transmission of divine love and mission
Jesus’ statement, quoted above, marks the beginning of the second part of the discourse on the vine, which sets out the concrete application of the vine-branch metaphor. The “chain” of transmission of love is emphasised: from the Father to Jesus and subsequently from Jesus to his disciples. This construction of succession (the Father – Jesus – the disciples) spontaneously reminds us of the solemn declaration that Jesus will leave to his own, still gathered in the Upper Room, on the evening of the day of resurrection: “As the Father has sent me, I also send you” (Jn 20:21). This sentence sounds almost like an official investiture formula of the divine mission to the disciples, who then, in connection with this, were asked to receive the Holy Spirit for the remission of sins.
In the same perspective of the transmission, after the declaration of the chain of love, the disciples are exhorted to remain in the love of Jesus for full joy through the observance of the commandments (as Jesus did towards the Father). Thus the ‘way’ of the commandments is again indicated as a concrete and sure means of abiding in the love of Jesus (vv.9.10). In this last expression (the love of Jesus), the genitive can indicate the love that Jesus has for the disciples (subjective genitive), as well as the love that the disciples have for Him (objective genitive). The former interpretation is more in keeping with the context and grammatical construction of v.9 (“abide in love, my love”), while the latter is more in tune with the v.10, in the light also of its parallels (“if you keep my commandments, you will abide in love for me” in comparison with “if you love me, keep my commandments” in Jn 14:15).
The mention of joy in v.11 (“I have told you these things that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full”) alludes to the fundamental aspect of life, the happy and eternal life (the sentence seems to conclude a thought with the characteristic phrase “this I have told you so that…”). This is reiterated by the allusion to Jesus’ joy as the source of that joy in the disciples, which can come to fullness, that is, become full, abundant (as in Jn 10:10 when Jesus declares that he came to give life, the life in abundance).
2. “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you”. The insistence on mutual love
From the love of Jesus and for Jesus we pass to the commandment of mutual love between the disciples, as the concrete fruit of abiding in Jesus. The exhortation of the “new commandment”, already made at the beginning of the farewell discourse, immediately after Judas’ exit from the Upper Room (cf. Jn 13:34-35), is taken up again. In reaffirming the necessity of mutual love between the disciples, which must have as its foundation and norm the love of Jesus himself for them, the concrete and highest expression of this love is now deepened: “to lay down one’s life for his friends” (v.13). Here, the term “the life” (psyche) indicates that which is more biological than theological, unlike he zoe “the life” that Jesus had declared himself to be in Jn 14:6 (“I am the way, the truth, and the life”). The phrase in Jn 15:13, however, has a clear Christological dimension and alludes to Jesus’ death, as already stated in the discourse of the Good Shepherd (Jn 10:11.15). Moreover, this “given” life has a close connection with that “offered” life, the new and eternal life, which corresponds to the Greek term he zoe (Jn 10:10.11; cf. 12:25). Jesus offers his earthly life (psyche) because he possesses the true life (zoe), the eternal one from the beginning (cf. Jn 1:4).
This perspective of eternity helps to see in depth the friendship that Jesus speaks of and develops in the following verses (vv.13-16). We must bear in mind that we are still in the context of love, since the word filoi (“friends”) derives precisely from fileo (“to love”), used in some Johannine passages in pair with the twin verb agapao (cf., e.g., the three questions of the risen Jesus to Peter in Jn 21:15-17). Therefore, the term “friends” in Jesus’ statements must be understood in its strongest sense of “beloved”. Thus, the Lord has called us no longer servants, but “beloved”, and has indeed demonstrated his greatest love by giving his own life for his “beloved”.
3. “I have chosen you and constituted you to go…” The mission of love
The expression ‘I have constituted you’ is an element of priestly theology. Indeed, we note with Italian biblical scholar Giuseppe Segalla that “the Hebrew verb corresponding to the one used here (to constitute) is used in Judaism for the ordination of rabbis and in Nm 8:10 for the ordination of Levites” (Segalla, Giovanni, 397). It is a thought, reflected in Rev 1:6 and 5:10, that Christ, with his blood, redeemed us and made us a kingdom of priests for his God and Father. In the light of these biblical passages, we can glimpse the “constituted” dignity of Christians, Christ’s disciples, as “priests” of God and at the same time as “envoys”, “missionaries” with the particular mission to “go and bear fruit” in a lasting way.
Thus, Jesus’ words at the end of the discourse of the vine still insist on the theme of “fruit”, of the fulfilment of prayer, but now everything is put into a missionary perspective with the specific verb “to go”. In this way, the repetition of the command of love among the disciples at the conclusion of the whole passage is also in function of the mission of evangelization entrusted by Jesus to his own. Such love is no longer a matter of personal ethical commitment, but a witness and proclamation of the disciples’ identity towards all. This is revealed in accordance with what Jesus left to his disciples at the beginning of his Farewell Discourse: “By this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another” (John 13:34).
Let us pray, then, with the Collect prayer provided in the Italian Missal for this Sunday:
O God, who loved us first and gave us your Son, that we might receive life through him, grant that in your Spirit we may learn to love one another as he loved us, to the point of laying down our lives for our brothers and sisters. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Useful points to consider:
CATECHISM OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH
2074 Jesus says: “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me, and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.” (Jn 15:5) The fruit referred to in this saying is the holiness of a life made fruitful by union with Christ. When we believe in Jesus Christ, partake of his mysteries, and keep his commandments, the Savior himself comes to love, in us, his Father and his brethren, our Father and our brethren. His person becomes, through the Spirit, the living and interior rule of our activity. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (Jn 15:12)
From a commentary on the gospel of John by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop (Lib. 10, 2: PG 74, 331-334)
The Lord calls himself the vine and those united to him branches in order to teach us how much we shall benefit from our union with him, and how important it is for us to remain in his love. By receiving the Holy Spirit, who is the bond of union between us and Christ our Savior, those who are joined to him, as branches are to a vine, share in his own nature.
On the part of those who come to the vine, their union with him depends upon a deliberate act of the will; on his part, the union is effected by grace. Because we had good will, we made the act of faith that brought us to Christ, and received from him the dignity of adoptive sonship that made us his own kinsmen, according to the words of Saint Paul: He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.
The prophet Isaiah calls Christ the foundation, because it is upon him that we as living and spiritual stones are built into a holy priesthood to be a dwelling place for God in the Spirit. Upon no other foundation than Christ can this temple be built. Here Christ is teaching the same truth by calling himself the vine, since the vine is the parent of its branches, and provides their nourishment.
From Christ and in Christ, we have been reborn through the Spirit in order to bear the fruit of life; not the fruit of our old, sinful life but the fruit of a new life founded upon our faith in him and our love for him. Like branches growing from a vine, we now draw our life from Christ, and we cling to his holy commandment in order to preserve this life. Eager to safeguard the blessing of our noble birth, we are careful not to grieve the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, and who makes us aware of God’s presence in us.
Let the wisdom of John teach us how we live in Christ and Christ lives in us: The proof that we are living in him and he is living in us is that he has given us a share in his Spirit. Just as the trunk of the vine gives its own natural properties to each of its branches, so, by bestowing on them the Holy Spirit, the Word of God, the only-begotten Son of the Father, gives Christians a certain kinship with himself and with God the Father because they have been united to him by faith and determination to do his will in all things. He helps them to grow in love and reverence for God, and teaches them to discern right from wrong and to act with integrity.