Jeremy L. Berg

Sixth Sunday of Easter: John 15:9-17

I suspect some of my best writing and deepest theological reflections are my least read. Today’s dig into the lectionary finds me indulging my contemplative tendencies, making some bold claims, and grasping for images and language to describe the indescribable. I hope a few of you will take this journey and find a souvenir to savor. -JB

We walked into the travel agency and nervously picked through the brochures on the wall, each advertising exotic destinations filled with bright sunshine and ocean-scapes. We were teenagers dreaming and scheming about our senior trip that coming spring. After much deliberation and bargaining with our parents, me and my five best friends were preparing for a spring break cruise together in the Caribbean. 

We were six pasty white guys from the northern tundra heading to the land of sunshine and ocean sand, so we each purchased a tanning booth package and spent the next few months preparing our skin for the change in climate. Despite our attempt at being wise and prepared, we still ended up with lobster-red sunburn!

In the text from John’s Gospel below, Jesus is a kind of travel agent handing out a verbal brochure describing life in the Kingdom and Spirit-filled relationship with the Trinity. Instead of fun in the hot sun, or casual wading in a salt water paradise, Jesus is preparing us for life in an ocean of love and long days breathing in the Father’s Joy while basking in the glow of unceasing grace. Let’s dig in:

“As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love.If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.You are my friends if you do what I command you.I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name.I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another” (John 15:9-17).

In John’s Gospel, words like “joy” or “love” are not mere sentimental emotions that come and go. They are  enduring destinations we can travel to and take up residence in. They are spiritual climates we must adjust to. They are fertile soil we can plant our lives in and begin to bear the fruit of joy and love in our own lives. John is inviting us to imbibe the spirit of “joy” just as we chug down H20 on a hot day. He’s inviting us to let our lives be warmed by the rays of agape love, just as we let our skin be tanned by the rays of the afternoon sun. 

Relaxing in a hammock of heavenly “joy” and soaking in the whirlpool of the Father’s lavish love are great features in a brochure on Kingdom living. Yet, our Heavenly Travel Agent keeps urging us to make his “commandments” a part of our spiritual travels as well. What’s up with that? This compact passage swirls around a few repeated words:  

Love – 9 times

Abide – 3 times

Father – 4 times

Commandments – 5 times

With a little reflection and detection work, we can piece together the logic of what our Heavenly Travel Agent is advertising, and the role the “commandments” play on the Way to our Kingdom abode. 

Sitting at the travel agent’s desk, paging through brochures as he clickety-clacked on his computer, certainly dates me in these days of easy online self-booking. No matter how it is booked, every trip will include a destination, lodgings, and mode of transportation. Our destination was the Caribbean islands, our lodging was a Carnival cruise ship, and we would get there by way of a memorable cross-country drive in my dad’s Chevy conversion van driven by our fearless chaperone, Paul Erickson. 

Jesus invites us to a spiritual destination or state of being where we take up lodging in the cozy abode of the Father’s Love. This is not a seaside resort or mountain lodge we travel to; its that sought after but rarely found island of inner peace and tranquility of heart, mind and soul. It’s a place of pulsating joy and spine-tingling contentment. It’s a spiritual spa where the Father, Son and Spirit are host. It’s a retreat center of the soul in the company of the Trinity with the Holy Spirit as our personal Spiritual Director. And we don’t even need to leave our house, or office, or chaotic lives to travel there. So, how do we get to the Father’s Abode? Jesus, show us the Way! 

Does this remind you of another conversation in this Gospel? That’s right, in the previous chapter 14 (remember chapter headings aren’t in the original, so this is one continuous dialogue from John 13-17), Jesus is talking precisely about the way to the Father’s abode:

2 My Father’s house has many rooms…I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4 You know the way to the place where I am going” (14:2-4).

Many, if not most, have assumed the destination (“My Father’s house”) Jesus speaks of here is Heaven—a place we “go to” upon bodily death. The conventional logic is Jesus is going away to prepare a place in Heaven for us by dying on the cross for our sins and he will “come back” someday, either at our death or his Second Coming, to take us to Heaven to be with him there forever. This reading naturally flows from a Western Christian imagination obsessed with a how-to-get-to-Heaven narrative for centuries. While this may be the meaning, others including myself think Jesus is talking about a different kind of place—a place whose address is actually an encounter and deepening relationship with a person. 

John is the contemplative among the Gospel writers, and he has Jesus stretching language and bending words to try to describe a spiritual state of dynamic union and rich communion a person can experience with the Triune God. If Jesus is talking about a place called Heaven some place far off in vv. 2-3, then its strange that a few verses later all the talk of dwellings (Gk. mone) has shifted to descriptions of a mutual indwelling of persons in communion with God by the Spirit:

15 “If you love me, keep my commands. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (14:15-17)

Is Jesus preparing a place for our soul in the Father’s Heaven by and by, or is Jesus talking preparing our hearts to become the dwelling place of God by the Spirit? The passage above celebrates the Spirit coming to make His forever abode in us (“be with you forever”; “lives with you and will be in you”). He continues, pressing deeper:

18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (14:18-20)

The thrust of this passage is about finding a forever lodging in the Trinitarian fellowship of mutual love and mutual indwelling—Jesus abides in the Father, we shack up in the love of Christ, and Jesus books reservations in our open and receptive heart. Now the clincher:

23 Jesus replied, “Anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them.24 Anyone who does not love me will not obey my teaching. (14:23-24)

Yes, there are many rooms, or dwellings, in the Father’s House, and Christ is working over time to get these rooms ready for the spiritual intimacy that will take place within these sacred walls. Jesus isn’t describing here mansions in the sky or a heavenly worship service in the court of a king. He’s preparing your heart and mine to become the dwelling place where God takes up residence with us (“we will come to them and make our home with them”). 

Sadly, centuries of Christian teaching and imagination has been focused on getting us into Heaven after we die, while Jesus wants to get the fullness of Trinitarian life living inside us on this side of Heaven. The world is blind and deaf to such a mystical spiritual experience, but Christ’s chosen are expected to embrace and plummet the depths of this reality. We need not fear that by embracing this mystical union with God now, we will somehow forfeit heaven later. But how sad to be so heavenly minded in our faith, that we neglect the here-and-now earthly good of playing host to Heaven’s king who longs to invade our orphan hearts!

Finally, we arrive back at Thomas’s question about transportation and the way to this spiritual destination of abiding in the love and joy of the Trinity. 

5 Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?” 6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. (14:5-6)

Okay, Jesus is the Way to the communion with the Father, but how does that work out in practice exactly? The answer surprises us, and jars us. We’re back at the word mentioned five times in this passage, and many more times in the entire discourse—commandments:

If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you… You are my friends if you do what I command you… I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another” (John 15:9-17).

The Father’s indwelling “joy” and divine “love” sound so appealing on Jesus’ lips, but we almost cringe as he repeatedly tells us that obeying his commandments is the Way to this spiritual destination and kingdom reality! But this passage makes clear that abiding in his love and letting his joy abide in us is inextricably bound up with a life of keeping his commandments. We need to press into this puzzle until we find the missing piece in Jesus’ kingdom logic.

We baulk at the thought of “commandments” being the way to spiritual rest and divine bliss, because we are all too familiar with the way religion has used “rules” and “commands” to weigh people down with guilt and fear. Coming aboard a Kingdom Cruise with Jesus sounds nice, but we fear that a cruise that entails “keeping commands” will crash the ship on an island of legalism occupied by self-righteous rule followers. No thanks, Kingdom Travel Agent. Is Jesus waving the promise of a “light burden and easy yoke” before our nose one moment (Matt 11:30), only to “tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on [our] shoulders” the next (Matt 23:4)? We need to rethink what Jesus means by urging us to obey his commandments. 

Packing the conversation van for the trip of a lifetime in March of 1998, we tossed in a couple atlases and roadmaps for navigating our way to Miami where we would board our cruise. This was still a pre-Google maps world though personal GPS devices were just beginning to appear on the market. We didn’t want to miss our boat, so we were intent on following the directions. 

“Directions” is not a bad translation of the word “commandments” so often on Jesus’ lips in this sprawling discourse. No one would accuse a road map of placing a heavy weight on the shoulders of six teenagers thirsting for the ocean adventures at the end of our mapped out route. Geographical directions are simply the Way to get to the destination, and the way to avoid getting lost along the way. 

Likewise, Jesus’ commandments are the moral-ethical-spiritual roads and rhythms that lead a person into the reality of Kingdom Living. By way of the cross, Jesus has given us an all-expenses paid journey into “the life that is truly life” (John 10:10) if we’ll walk in the deepening grooves of his Kingdom ethic. 

Many claim to be “liberated” from religious rules, charting their own path, veering outside God’s wise guardrails, and living the life of a reckless off-road wanderers. But Jesus rightly warns us that the wide and open road often leads to destruction and self-made bondage rather than freedom (see Matt 7:13). Jesus, on the other hand, promises us that keeping his commandments, or following his “life map,” leads us on the narrow Way to a life of joy, repentance, love, forgiveness, grace, hope, transformation, and a deep and rich communion with the Lover of our soul. 

In summary, this passage is like a colorful travel brochure enticing us to make our next trip a spiritual journey into the overflowing love and joy of the Trinity. Jesus is our travel guide and host, who books our trip, pays the fee, gives us directions to get us there, and goes before us to show us the Way. But unlike me and my five friends arriving home from a 5-day cruise with fleeting memories and a fading tan, Jesus books us a one-way ticket into a deeper spiritual communion that never needs to end—ever. 

Let me close where this entire discourse is headed in chapter 17—not in ‘going to heaven’ but abiding forever in the spiritual union and mutual indwelling of God and his people, now and forever. Behold, Jesus’ prayer for us:

I pray…that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me—so that they may be brought to complete unity” (John 17:20-23).

All aboard!