Willing to Die

 

Scripture: John 15:12-13 (ESV)

¹² “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.

Devotion:

            The context of this scripture is Jesus giving last minute instructions to his disciples in the upper room before they eat the Passover meal and go out to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus will be arrested and ultimately killed. It is more than just an exhortation to love one another. Although it is that. It is an invitation to come and die with and for Jesus. The church in modern America is honestly not very good at either of these things. Not only do we fail to love one another, we would not even consider dying for one another.

            The current pandemic has illustrated this perfectly. With our admonition to each other to “be safe” we deliberately contradict the words of our savior to be willing to die for one another. The earliest Christians ministered to sick people at great risk to their own lives during times of a much deadlier plague. The result was that Christians became famous for the way they loved even strangers. While the rest of the world either isolated themselves or fled into the countryside to escape the death that stalked those who remained in the cities. The Christians dove right in and tried to alleviate the suffering and be servants to those who were dying of the deadly plague,

            How different the modern church is. We are a comfort and safety seeking church. We have lost the self-sacrificing dedication of our ancestors in the faith. We have joined with the world in its obsession over safety. Which is now being shown to be the illusion that it always has been. As those who are double vaccinated, boosted and mask compliant safety seekers are coming down with the virus at high rates. All of our man-made defenses against this disease are failing and we have nowhere left to run and hide ourselves from this illness.

            Jesus has given us our marching orders we should obey them. Following Jesus in order to minister to those who are sick and even those who are dying. We must open our churches to the sick and not treat them as lepers who are unclean. The church must be a hospital for those dying of physical and spiritual illness again. We, as Christians, must minister in Jesus' name in all places to all people, or stop using the name Christian to describe ourselves.

            We must make the never ending well of love we have in Christ available to the world and not hoard it for ourselves. The church must be a body where we sacrifice ourselves for the well-being of each other and the world. Let’s pray:

Prayer:

            Lord, you challenge us as Christians to live our lives sacrificially for you and for our neighbors. You have given us a great opportunity to serve our neighbors during this pandemic season. Help us to rise to the challenge and meet the need that is out there waiting for our answer. Glorify your name through our willingness to serve the poor, the ill, and the unloved each and every day. Amen.