Jesus said: ‘A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends’. Tomasz said: Really?

Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room (last supper): A man can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends.

Well, for many, many years I thought Jesus was wrong when He told this to his disciples. Especially anytime I’ve been in front of the Holy Sacrament (Exposition), I used to say to Jesus in my heart: You made a mistake, my Lord, in the upper room! There is such greater love than someone gives his/her life for friends – it is YOUR LOVE! Because you didn’t sacrifice your life for friends, but for ENEMIES! Believe me, I very often used to say that to Jesus during Holy hour. Why did I think like that?

I was guided by words of St. Paul who wrote letter to the Romans. And he wrote there: It is not easy to die even for a good man though of course for someone really worthy, a man might be prepared to die but what proves that God loves us is that Christ died for us while we were still sinners – his enemies. (Rm. 5:7-8)

When I was studying philosophy, I changed my mind. Today, I argue that Christ in the upper room exactly knew what He was saying.

Have you ever thought about the meaning of the word FRIEND? For me, this word has a dual meaning – active and passive.

In the ACTIVE sense, the word FRIEND indicates someone who loves us; but in the PASSIVE sense it indicates someone who is loved by us (s/he experiences love from us).

For example, Jesus used to call Judas a friend, not because Judas loved Him, but because Judas was loved by Jesus. Are you with me? 🙂

So, when Jesus was telling his disciples in the upper room about what his love is, and what the value of his death is, he exactly said: no man has bigger love than this, when someone gives his life for enemy s/he loves (treats) as friend.

And do you know what makes me happy today? We – people – could be God’s enemies or act in this way against Him. But God will never be the enemy of any man.

When Jesus suffered all this pain inflicted by His enemies on Good Friday, He not only loved those who made this pain to Him…, there was something more – instead of accusing His enemies or criminals in front of God – He was defending them by crying: Father, forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing.

And I believe He will do the same again, and again, and anytime I betray Him in my life. In that point I am speechless!