This coming Sunday is the 6th Sunday of Easter. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends – in v.13 we come to the greatest love. This verse is perhaps the most explicit statement in the Gospels of what it means to love as Jesus loves. While some might argue this is simply a restatement of the ideal of Plato and Aristotle, that classical idea is given new gravitas of Jesus’ conventional mission by which the world is redeemed.

Morris [598-9] comments succinctly and beautifully: “There is no love greater than that of one who lays down his life for others. Anything else must be less. This is the supreme test of love. In the context this must refer primarily to the love of Jesus shown on the cross. There he laid down his life on behalf of his friends. Some have raised the question whether the love that dies for enemies is not greater than that which is concerned for friends, but that is not before us here. In this passage Jesus is not comparing the love that sacrifices for enemies with that which sacrifices for friends. He is in the midst of friends and is speaking only of friends. With respect to them he is saying that one cannot have greater love than to die for them. When it is a question of enemies Jesus did in fact die for them (Rom. 5:10). And as Loyd says, ‘in truth love has sunk below its proper level if it begins to ask who is my friend and who my enemy. Love gives, and gives everything, for all men.’ That is the thought of this verse. Jesus gives everything, even life itself, for others. There is no greater proof of love.”

Image credit: Duccio di Buoninsegna – Appearance on the Mountain in Galilee | ca. 1310 | Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo, Siena | Public Domain