John 15:13 says Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. It occurred to me tonight that this passage has a much deeper meaning than what appears on the surface. I believe we would all consider it a great love if someone were willing to take a bullet for us and to die so we could live. We all know that the love Jesus had for all of us was this type of love because he did exactly that…….He laid down his life so that we might live. The more I thought about this tonight the more I realized that there is more here than living and dying. Friday night our church group shared communion and a simple foot washing service together. Our theme for the evening centered on brokenness and how by giving that brokenness to God and in some ways to each other we might be able to find a wholeness again and find healing. It was a very moving time and I am sure that some healing took place but I believe there was also a kind of "laying down our life for another" so that they might begin to find healing. No one had to die in the physical sense. Jesus has already done that for each of us but some other type of dying took place. Some of us saw our pride die, if only for that short time, so that others could see a brokenness and a realness that would allow them to lay down their own brokenness so that they might live. Some of us gave our hurt away to death so that others might live in the life that comes from offering to help carry that hurt. There was one particular death I saw that night that allowed me to gain life. I saw a friend give her hurt and her anger and disappointments up just long enough for me to glimpse the true face of my friend, a friend I have missed for quite a time. I don't remember the exact words she spoke to me after she washed my feet but what I do remember is her grabbing my face in both hands, as she had done in the past, and saying with whatever words…"I love you." She gave up a piece of her life in order to do that. She gave that of herself in order that I might find life, a life that I thought was dead. She breathed life back into a friendship for a moment that up until that point had more death than life in it. I know she had to push aside some things in order to do it. Some things in side of her had to die if only for that brief moment, things she had to let go of in order to give that life for that time. So when she put her hands around my face I was taken back to a year or so ago when she made the same gesture and said to me "don't you understand there is nothing you can ever do that will make a difference to me. I love you……I just love you." There is no greater love than this, that a friend lay down her life (her disappointments , her anger , her mistrust, her hurt) for her friend. I am humbled by her ability to love no matter what ……….there is no but…….just I love you.
Pasted from <http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15&version=NIV>
