John 15:13

Exegesis for Chapel Devotion at Minnesota Valley Lutheran High School, September 9th 2010.

"The Greatness of Christ's Love"
(Week theme: "Connected to Christ's Love") (Hymn 256, "How Great Thou Art")

13 μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην οὐδεὶς ἔχει, ἵνα τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ.

13 Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

μείζονα ταύτης ἀγάπην Greater love (than) this, μείζονα is a comparative adjective, "greater" from μέγας.

οὐδεὶς ἔχει, no one has, The first of two indefinite pronouns in this verse shows us that no one at all (οὐδεὶς) has (pres. indicative) this "greater love." The comparative "greater" is technically all that is necessary here since only two items--more or less--are being compared. We would generally distort the figure of speech with a superlative: "The greatest love anybody could have...", but that's a corruption of our time.

ἵνα that, Here ἵνα is used in the Koine sense of explanatory with the subjunctive rather than the classical Greek "purpose" clause.

τις τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ θῇ someone might lay down his life, The second indefinite pronoun present a rare case, a "someone" (τις) who lays down his life. θῇ is the aorist subjunctive of τίθημι. The subjunctive shows an uncertain but possible event.

ὑπὲρ τῶν φίλων αὐτοῦ. for his friends. ὑπὲρ with the genitive here means "in behalf of, for the sake of." The picture is of a man who willingly dies for those he loves; his friends. This is what Jesus did, and there are examples of this in history, especially on the battlefield. In recent popular culture one of the more vivid examples is found in "Saving Private Ryan." Most of the film shows men dying to get a message to a man they don't know, but in the end, everyone except the Private himself gives up their lives for this one man who has quickly transformed from an unknown name to a man who doesn't want their help at all to a comrade and friend. In recent history we might think of Todd Beamer and other passengers who took control of United flight 93 away from hijackers on 9/11 2001 resulting in the plane crashing into a field (rather than its intended target, the White House) and the death of all aboard.