Friends: Christian faith is about relationship with God the Father Almighty through faith in His Son Jesus. That wasn’t immediately evident to the disciples. Have a prayerful Holy Week; Easter is next Sunday. Blessings ...

(PS: From our auto racing days, Janine Vogrin Doyle (The Bean on our IMS pit note crew; her dad Jim ran the STP Indy Car program) has survived cancer and needs help. Her GoFundMe page is https://gofund.me/e7ca07427.)

Spirituality Column #1011

March 31, 2026

Common Christianity / Uncommon Commentary

Friends, Partners, and Heirs

By Bob Walters

“Ask whatever you wish, and it will be given to you.” – Jesus, John 15:7

“The Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.” – Jesus, John 15:16

“This is my command: Love each other.” – Jesus, John 15:17

These familiar verses from “The Vine” passage in the Gospel of John track the final teachings of Jesus to the Disciples after the Last Supper and before His crucifixion.

On what we now traditionally call “Maundy Thursday,” Jesus and the 11 remaining disciples – traitorous Judas has already left to inform the Pharisees of Jesus’s whereabouts – depart their Passover meal out a back door and walk through dark Jerusalem toward the Garden of Gethsemane.

John chapters 15, 16, and 17, a story recorded only in the fourth Gospel, chronicle Jesus’s encouragement, warnings, and instructions to the confused and soon to be bewildered disciples who believe Jesus to be the Son of God, but have yet to comprehend the meaning of His impending departure / death / return.

Jesus doesn’t tell them to behave better; he emphasizes his and their identity. Jesus locks in on the generosity and goodness of God: “He will give you whatever you ask” (v7,16). But they don’t understand what they will be asking for.  Jesus tells them they are no longer slaves, but his friends (v14), because He has “made the Father known to them” (v15). Jesus insists going forward they must work together because they will need each other and be partners to complete the task assigned to them.

The task? Preach Jesus’s message of grace and salvation to the world. Be His partners – and each other’s – in telling the greatest story ever told of how the Son of God came into humanity to heal our sins and restore our loving, eternal relationship with the Father of all things; to tell how Jesus died in loving obedience to His Father but rose in loving glory to seal the truth of His mission and heal the mortal wound of our sin.

Jesus is preaching a New Covenant of faith for all mankind, not of Law for the Jews. Repentance means not just physical obedience, but learning a new way of thinking about life and God; it is a new way of love and redemption.  It is a gift the world will not immediately understand; a gift from a God/man it hates. It is a gift that shows humanity the reality of God, and that gift that says our own lives have purpose as we glorify and are glorified with God. That is what Jesus did; that is the gift God sent.

We are not detached bystanders in our Christian lives today. “If you obey my commands you will remain in my love … as I have obeyed and remain in the Father’s love” (vv9-10). I believe that we, like the disciples, are chosen participants, though I have no idea why this one is chosen and “gets it,” and this one isn’t, and doesn’t. 

All we can do is preach truth, share love, obey in faith, and trust God’s plan. I often think how opaque were Jesus’s claims and instructions as he spoke to Jews, Pharisees, and gentiles. It seems the only beings who understood exactly who Jesus was and the power He had were the demons who feared Him, not the humans whom He loved and came to save. Many humans still do not understand our part in the story.

We want God and Jesus to do stuff for us; doesn’t Jesus say, twice in this passage, “Ask and it will be given to you”? What we are to ask, as friends, partners, and heirs of the magnificent ministry of Christ, is how to best preach, share, and witness this precious word of life. It is for God’s eternal glory, and for joy in our worldly life.

On Easter we celebrate our own salvation, sure. But our joy is being on the team.

Walters (rlwcom@aol.com) notes, “Gethsemane” means “a place that crushes olives.” Jesus, the Messiah anointed one, with olive oil, was crushed for our sins.