No Greater Love – by Greg Albrecht
Friend and Partner Letter from March 2025:
The night before he was crucified, Jesus washed his disciples’ feet. He lived a life of sacrificial service. He came to serve us, rather than to receive our service. Like the water he used to wash his disciples’ feet (and yours and mine) he poured himself out, both throughout his earthly ministry, but most remarkably and ultimately, on his Cross.
During what some call his “final discourse” – the long discussion Jesus had with his disciples the evening before he gave his all on his Cross – when he emptied himself so that we could be filled, when he ingested all human hatred and breathed out his love, when he returned good for evil, love for hatred, Jesus said:
Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends (John 15:13).
I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends… (John 15:15).
The highest form and degree of love is self-sacrificial love. There is no greater love than to lay down your life for a friend.
I will always be grateful to author Brennan Manning (1934-2013) for his writing – his insights helped me to more fully comprehend and believe the grace, love and mercy of God, in ways I had never understood or experienced before. His given name was Richard Francis Xavier Manning, but later in life he changed his given first name because of his good friend Ray.
Richard Manning and Ray were the best of friends as the grew up in Brooklyn. They did everything together. They attended the same school, when they were old enough they pooled their money and became co-owners of their first car. They double-dated, they enlisted in the Army at the same time, went to boot camp together and then wound up being sent to the frontlines together during the Korean War.
One night in Korea they were sitting in the same foxhole, talking about life in Brooklyn. Richard was doing most of the talking, while Ray sat listening, enjoying a bar of chocolate. Suddenly a live grenade was thrown into their foxhole. Ray Brennan looked at his good friend Richard Manning and threw his body on the grenade. The explosion killed Ray, but he saved the life of his best friend Richard.
Returning home, Richard resolved to become a priest, and in doing so he decided to change his first name from Richard to Brennan, in honor of his good friend Ray Brennan who had self-sacrificially given his life for him. Richard officially became Brennan Manning. He bore the name of his friend just as Christ-followers call themselves after Jesus Christ, who laid down his life for us, his friends.
Some years later Brennan Manning went to visit his now deceased friend Ray’s mother in Brooklyn. They sat together, talking about Brennan’s good friend and her son, when Brennan asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?”
Mrs. Brennan jumped off the couch, yelling, waving her finger in Brennan’s face saying, “Jesus Christ – he died for you, what more could he have done?”
Brennan later wrote of this moment, and said he imagined himself standing before the Cross of Jesus Christ, wondering, “Does God really love me?” And, as he questioned God’s love, visualizing standing before the Cross of Jesus, he also imagined Mary, Jesus’ mother, pointing at her son on the Cross, the Son of God, asking Brennan, “Jesus Christ – what more could he have done?”
Self-sacrifice is doing something one does not have to do, letting go of something, laying something down, giving and providing something for the benefit of another. TheCross of Christ is the once and for all, greatest and most magnificent singular expression of the self-sacrificing love of God.
Jesus came to serve us, but there is much more to his service than we often consider. When he washed his disciples’ feet Peter was offended because he felt he should wash Jesus’ feet, not the other way around (John 13:8).
Like Peter, we too can miss the boat when we speak of how we can serve Jesus, if we get the “cart before the horse.” We cannot serve Jesus unless and until we allow him to first serve us.
Yes, we are called to be servants of Jesus, and yes, we pick up our cross and follow him. Yes, we serve others in the name of Jesus. But most important of all, we must be willing for Jesus to serve us. We must journey to the foot of his Cross and yield to his love, grace and mercy, embracing him for all that he is and forever will be to us. We cannot serve Jesus unless and until he first serves us!
Jesus lives in us, only as and when we surrender to him and lay down our trophies at his Cross. He never forces himself on us. We lay down our self-importance, our cherished notions of how much we have served and given to others and to God, and allow him to wash our feet.
A rough-and-ready oil-mining veteran named Harry Stamper, played by Bruce Willis in the movie Armageddon, is called on to take part in a mission to save humanity from a massive asteroid on a collision course with planet earth. The space shuttle carrying Harry and his team lands on the asteroid, the team drills a hole (hence the important of Harry’s expertise professional skills as an oil miner on this mission) into its core and insert a nuclear bomb that once detonated, according to their plan, will split the asteroid into two parts and change its course, causing it not to have a fatal collision with earth.
The bomb is in place, and once they lift off on their space shuttle and are far enough away from the explosion on the asteroid they plan to detonate the bomb. But something goes terribly wrong, and it becomes evident that someone will have to remain on the asteroid and detonate the bomb manually once all the others are safely on their way back to the earth.
Harry Stamper chooses to remain – insists in fact. Just before blowing himself up, along with the asteroid, self-sacrificing himself, Harry speaks to his daughter Grace on a video phone. Then he watches the shuttle safely on its way, escaping the carnage that will come, and while staring at the beautiful blue planet earth rotating in space, thinking of his daughter and all he loves, Harry gently smiles, presses the detonator, and says, “We win, Gracie.”
The screen immediately fills with racing images of love through a father’s eyes. Harry is pushing his laughing little girl on a backyard swing. A future image, yet to take place, depicts Gracie’s wedding day, when of course Harry, her father, will not be in attendance.
Grace is aptly named in Armageddon, for her father graces her – expressing his self-sacrificial love as indeed Jesus, on his Cross, embraced and accepted all the hatred, evil, corruption, murder, mayhem, greed, abuse and bloodshed of humanity, and ended it all – once and for all – giving himself, burning himself out along with all the evil – so that we all might be cleansed, washed, saved, accepted, embrace, and given the matchless love of God.
The cross of Christ is the once and for all, forever, eternal moment of the glorious self-sacrificial love of God.
God, in Christ, traveled across and through space, landing on a once beautiful, pristine planet now besmirched by human mud and filth, and laid down his life for its inhabitants – whom he had created – calling them his friends. On his Cross he ingested and absorbed all the hatred and evil of humanity, all of it! He burned up all evil and wickedness, past, present, and future – he cleansed, restored, and saved his own creation from itself and themselves, and he did it all out of his matchless and supreme self-sacrificing love.
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called the children of God! (1 John 3:1)
The Cross of Christ has lavished his love on us, we have been graced, cleansed and forgiven. The Cross of Christ triumphs over evil and hatred. There is no greater love!
Out of the ashes of the explosion on the Cross, out of the ashes left over after evil has been defeated, Jesus rises from his tomb, creating new creations (you and me) in whom he lives.
Good has been returned for evil. There is no greater love! Everyone and all has been forgiven, if only God’s forgiveness, love and grace will be accepted and embraced. The Cross of Christ stands, over all, above all. Life in Christ, the new life we live as his new creations, is the Jesus Way.
The Cross of Christ is the crux – the center – the fulcrum – the core – the hinge – of all that is beautiful, worthy, good and just. Let us collectively, together, praise, worship and thank him. There is no greater love!
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, I am, by the grace of God, your brother in Christ –
Greg Albrecht
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