Jesus is a friend of mine...?

I've been reflecting on Jesus' repeated comments along the lines of 'If anyone loves me he will obey my teaching' and 'You are my friends if you do what I command.' in John chapters 13-15.

In one sense it's easy to understand the latter statement as 'you can only be my friend if you do what I say', although I would normally take it in the sense of 'how can you claim to be my friend and not love one another?' (the command he makes repeatedly in the passage above is 'Love each other').

However, on reading it again, there almost seems to be two slightly different things he's saying here.

In the first part of the passage, i.e. Chapter 14, this is what he says:
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (v.15)
"They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me." (v.21)
"Those who love me will keep my word" (v.23)
(from NRSV to keep people happy!)

Verse 21 would seem to indicate is that Jesus is talking about our loving others being a sign that we love him (as I've mentioned above). Or simply that a natural fruit of loving him is loving others.

I think I've struggled with these statements in the past, taking them in a legalistic sense as 'how can you really love Jesus when you're so rubbish at loving others'.

However, he's not saying anything about how much he loves us (or what we can do to earn that love) - that's taken as given! Here he's dealing with the issue of how we can love him - in the context of talking to his disciples about leaving them ("Where I am going, you cannot come." 13:34) . In other words: 'I am going, but if you want to follow me and continue to love me, then this is what you must do'. Useful to compare with "Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:40). We're definitely talking active loving here.

However, the part of I've been considering a little more is Jesus' words in Chapter 15. Here the focus seems to change slightly:
"If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love" (v.10)
"You are my friends if you do what I command you" (v.14)

There is a definite conditional edge ('if') to these statements.

I am sure it is easy to argue that he is simply continuing the theme of the previous statements, but I think the context gives it a slightly different feel.
From verse 9: "As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and abide in his love."

As I read it again, I wonder if what Jesus is doing is continuing the instruction manual on loving God and being in relationship with him ('friends'). I have discovered in my own life that when I am taking seriously the command to love others, I depend on God more, I talk to and listen to him more, I generally feel much closer to him. We are participating in something together. One of the ways in which CS Lewis defines friendship (in his book 'The Four Loves') is the love that comes from sharing a common interest or goal. I wonder whether Jesus is just being practical in his suggestion to 'keep my commandments if you want to remain in my love and be my friends' - when you're pursuing goals and interests in common with the 'Master', then friendship grows.

Jesus then makes some statements about being friends (not servants) because we know the Master's business. And what is his business, but loving?

God's love for us is never in question for Jesus, I think he's trying to give us some clues about how to love him back. And, as the NIV puts it, "remain in [his] love". It's a practical suggestion, not a cause-and-effect statement. God's love is constant, it's us who have to do the changing. And the active process of loving people (and therefore Jesus, as mentioned above) changes us.

Not only is Jesus providing us with a concrete way of displaying our love for an invisible God, but he also suggests that this is the way to grow in our relationship with him, to discover the mutual joy of purposeful and loving friendship with a heavenly God.