THERE IS A WONDERFULLY LONG ACCOUNT OF THE LAST SUPPER in the Gospel according to St. John, much longer than the ones recorded in the first three gospels. During this conversation, Jesus gives his disciples a new commandment, "That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." He goes on: "By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another" (John 13:34, 35). In these two directives Jesus supplied a simple means by which the world was to know his followers—by the love they had for one another and by extension, for all humanity. And if this were all that Jesus had to say on the subject we might take it to heart, endeavor to be good students, and do our best to love one another.
But the Master does not let his students off the hook so easily. Later in the discourse, Jesus says to his disciples, "This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:12, 13). In these few words, Jesus wraps his disciples in his own love. Later, he makes the ultimate sacrifice of his own life for them and for the world. Jesus elevates their capacity to love to the same level as his capacity to love. He also reminds them that he is not the source of this command: "For all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you" (John 15:15).
What does it really mean to lay down one's life for one's friends? In Jesus' case, he literally laid down his human life to prove in his resurrection from the grave that there is no death. But obviously Jesus didn't mean that we all literally lay down our lives for others. There would be very few Christians left if we did!
If we are not to literally lay down our lives, then what else do we have to lay down for our friends? The answer is—everything. The arc of a human life from birth to death, with likes and dislikes, good decisions and bad mistakes, happy experiences and sorrowful ones, joyous times and difficult times—is to be laid down for our "friends." One can assume that Jesus didn't mean only our personal friends, but all humanity. Earlier in this same Gospel, when he was speaking to a future disciple, Nicodemus, Jesus described this sacrifice of mortal living as being "born again" (see John 3:3). It is not an easy task. Most of us succeed only partially. But the requirement remains.
If it is God's requirement, then what does it mean? The concept can seem impossible to achieve, especially because it can imply that we are to give up everything we define as our "life." Does it mean to sell our cars, our homes? To discard our clothes and wear simple robes? Deny ourselves the pleasure of beautiful music or a lovely sunset? God's command isn't necessarily to discard the practicalities of this world, but to realize that they are only temporal phenomena. A life spent focused on manipulating, altering, and upgrading temporary things is a life wasted. Jesus' command to lay down our life, means we should turn our hearts away from the transitory, and focus instead on the spiritual and eternal—to put God, Love, at the center of our lives. This, we can do.
Yet there is in each of us an apparent resistance to laying down our lives in this way. Paul calls it the "carnal mind," which he describes as "enmity [hostility] against God" (Rom. 8:7). The carnal mind is, for the most part, our sense of living life as a mortal person. When this mind sees what it doesn't have, it seeks to get it. It is constantly afraid of losing something that it has already obtained. Love, on the other hand, never seeks to get or keep anything; it only seeks to give, while losing any sense of personal gain. To lay down one's life is to turn the purpose of one's life from getting and keeping to giving—to expressing God's nature as Love itself (see I John 4:8, 16).
If we are fortunate enough to influence other lives, then the good we do has no bounds.
This "laying down" permeates every detail of our lives. It demands constant attention to our thoughts and actions. Why? Because laying down one's life is not one big event. It is a moment-by-moment process, until it becomes a lifetime of thinking and doing in God's service and in the service of others. A life being laid down is also a life that is recognizably different from others. It may engender persecution and surely sets one apart from normal human affairs. Jesus told us that this would happen: "Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, ... and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake" (Matt. 5:11). But he also told us that though the task will be sometimes onerous, our persistence pays off: "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full" (John 15:11). Self-sacrifice is not hardship—it is joy—because in it one realizes that joy is a quality of selflessness. The joy of self-sacrifice is the joy of divine Love.
When governed by this command to lay down our life for our friends, great individuals can and have changed the world. Every true leader throughout all of human history embodied this command to some degree, whether he or she realized it or not. Moses' life, devoted to lifting the Hebrew people's understanding of God, resulted in the irreversible establishment in the world of monotheism—the beginning of truly understanding God. The Apostle Paul, sustained by his great vision on the road to Damascus, established Christian communities throughout the Roman world, a lifetime labor of love and self-sacrifice that may have saved Christianity as we know it today. And there are many examples outside of Biblical history. Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi is well known for his work in gaining India's independence from Great Britain through nonviolent means. One quote attributed to him is, "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." Each of these individuals laid down his sense of human life, and, therefore, left an indelible mark on all of humanity.
If we honestly follow this command, and if the only life we change is our own, that is enough to bless the world. If we are fortunate enough to influence other lives, then the good we do has no bounds.
The demand for the love that sacrifices a mortal sense of ourselves comes from God. Our receptivity to it is not the result of any personal desire to do good—it is an inevitable consequence of being God's perfect reflection. It is not isolated in any religious group nor owned by any particular theology. It is felt by all of humanity. It might merely brighten one individual day. Or lighten one individual burden. Or become the heartbeat of one individual life, which in turn gives that life the ability to move mountains. But whatever the circumstance, laying down one's life is never a loss. It is the way to gain everything.
