Saturday in the Fifth Week of Easter, May 21, 2022

John 15:18-21

Jesus said to his disciples:  “If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own; but because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you. Remember the word I spoke to you, ‘No slave is greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”

The “world” is understood as the realm of the devil (cf. John 14, 30), which can be defined as a society which despises God and promotes immorality as its highest good; or as fallen human nature, against which we must fight (Romans 7, 15-17). We can overcome the devil and our human nature only with the help of God’s grace.  

“If the world hates you, realize that it hated me first.”  The “world”, understood as the realm of the devil, has hated God from the beginning; as our fallen human nature, it can be said to hate the Lord first because he has come to enable us all to overcome it.  The Lord’s point in saying this is to teach his Apostles that as he, despite all the good he has done, has been persecuted, so will they.  “If you belonged to the world, the world would love its own.”  That is, You would be the world’s own.  “Belonging” to the world means to put pursuing ambition, lust, greed, and other passions above the service of God.  The world’s “love” is the pleasure or other passing things that may be gained through these pursuits.  “Because you do not belong to the world, and I have chosen you out of the world, the world hates you.”  The Apostles and devout Christians do not belong to the world because they seek God alone, and to do his holy will.  Their goal is not a house built on the sands of time that will soon be swept away, but a house founded on the Rock of Jesus Christ, a home in heaven with him (cf. Matthew 7, 24-27).  “I have chosen you out of the world.”  The Lord calls all people “out of the world”, but they are few who come to him: “Many are called but few are chosen”, that is, choose to follow the call (Matthew 22, 14).  St. John emphasizes this choice of answering God’s call by referring to Christians as “the elect” (2 John 1, 1).  “The world hates you.”  The devil fights against the baptized through temptations and the persecutions he rouses up.  Fallen human nature rebels against our attempts to discipline it, to master it so that we may fully accomplish the will of God.

“If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you.”  That is, people who have given themselves up to amoral or anti-moral living and see any reminder of God as a direct attack upon them and their lifestyles.  They are very sensitive to the slightest hint of religion and burst into hysterics when they catch sight of it, or suspect it.  This can result in personal attacks on believers and even outright persecution.  The Apostles have seen people — even in his own home town — trying to kill the Lord on various occasions before, but will only understand what he means here with his crucifixion.

“If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.”  God provides each human person, throughout his life, all that is necessary to be saved.  God sends inspirations, messengers, and miracles into the lives of all, so that they might repent of their evil and embrace the truth.  Anyone who comes to believe in the Lord Jesus will keep the word of the Apostles through the commandments which they have passed on.

“And they will do all these things to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who sent me.”  The wicked of the world will hate and persecute believers on account of the fact that “God saves” — the meaning of “Jesus” — those who love him and follow his commandments.  The hatred and persecution, then, is directed at God through those who adhere to him.  God’s grace supports those who suffer on his account, and he rewards them with the highest places in heaven: “And I saw thrones and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of Jesus and for the word of God and who had not adored the beast nor his image nor received his character on their foreheads or in their hands” (Revelation 20, 4).  “Because they do not know the one who sent me.”  That is, they rejected the One who sent the Son.

In our own struggles against temptations and the urging of our fallen human nature we have an Advocate interceding for us with the Father (cf. 1 John 2, 1), who has said, “Have confidence. I have overcome the world” (John 16, 33).