Denise Whitfield
Director of Christion Education
Lay Down Your Life
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.
13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command.” John 15:12-14
I think that often we read Scripture and fail to mine deeply enough to uncover from its pages all the treasure in meaning and application that is there for us. The above verse is an example. I think we can read this verse and make only the simple application that relates to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross—where He gave “his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). We remember, as we should, the full expression of the Father’s love in the giving of His Only Begotten Son so that we who believe have sins forgiven and a guaranteed home in heaven (John 3:16). Our contemporary application of this verse comes as we honor, on days like Memorial Day and Veteran’s Day, those who Abraham Lincoln described as the ones who “gave their last measure of devotion.”
But I think this verse may call us to a laying down of our lives in ways that I think are almost more difficult for us than physical death. Please know, I mean no disrespect to those who have fought and died for my freedom. I would not minimize their sacrifice . . . I have a great sense of indebtedness to and gratitude for them because of it. But if we only think about this verse as it applies to our physical lives, then most of us can easily escape conviction. Most of us can be pretty certain we are not going to be called upon to risk our very lives for the benefit of another. And so we pass over and read on.
But this verse is for all of us. Christ says our obedience to the call to lay down our lives is evidence of our friendship with Him. Paul reaffirms it in His words found in Romans 12, describing the calling on our lives in these terms—to be living sacrifices. To lay down our lives for another probably won’t require us to die, but it may mean: laying down our careers to parent our own children, laying down our political agenda to listen to another perspective, laying down our retirement travel plans to serve in ministry, laying down our material desires to meet another’s material need, laying down our schedules to attend to and care for another, laying down our right to equitable compensation to be free to humbly serve, laying down our reputations to provide friendship to someone broken. It is a singular, high calling with many expressions.
Living and loving sacrificially is more challenging for all of us than the idea of giving up our physical lives because the truth is, there is no avoiding this call to action and obedience. If we call ourselves followers of Christ, we have experienced and now are called to “greater love.”
“Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children 2 and walk in the way of love,
just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Ephesians 5:1-2