John 15:12-13 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you..."

Question:

I enjoy knowing the metaphysical interpretations of things.

Comment:

In our mortal minds we misunderstand and misinterpret love in so many ways. We attach conditions or expectations—“I love you if you do this,” or “I love you therefore you have to do that.” Jesus clearly wants to emphasize that he is calling us to a higher understanding—an unconditional love that is simply the Presence and Power of God flowing through us and joining us together in one creative spiritual energy of infinite possibility.   We can't achieve that Christ consciousness of love so long as we are focused on how love meets our personal human expectations, or fulfills our perceived human needs. What Jesus means by “lay down one's life” isn't that we should make our own needs less important than the needs of others. It's that we must rise above the consciousness that sees any difference between the two! Death has no reality for Jesus—he's about to demonstrate that pretty conclusively in this same Gospel, at the tomb of Lazarus and on his own cross. So he's not saying we should be willing to die. He's saying that loving as he loves is a matter of “laying down” every sense of personal need, every condition or limitation to the energy of love, and simply embracing the infinite Love that is the divine Light and Love in which we are all one. We don't sacrifice ourselves for the sake of our loving friendships; we allow our loving friendships to become a doorway into the infinite experience of unconditional love that lives as the Christ of our being and bonds us together as the Presence of God.   Blessings!

Rev. Ed