Jesus’s Commandment to Love One another

Today’s passage is a part of the ‘Commissioning discourse’ that Jesus give his disciples, knowing that he was to take up his cross soon and he will no longer be present with his disciples. 

He compares himself to the life giving vine and the disciples as the branches and as such, they become a part of Jesus. The union between Jesus and a genuine disciple is so complete that they become truly one in being and mission. Constant communion with Jesus is a pre-requisite for the apostolic fruitfulness of the disciples. 

This abiding in Jesus is possible only when we love just ‘as’ Jesus loves us. I,e loving obedience. He loves us so much that he sacrificed himself for us. As his friends, he calls us to have this ‘Christlike’  love for each other, to be ready to lay down our lives for one another, as friends in Christ. 

This is the main commandment that Christ gives us as his Church to form and live as a community of love, equality, fraternity and fellowship.