You didn't choose me, I chose you

"You didn't choose me. I chose you." 

from John 15:16

I imagine the disciples in those last days of Jesus' ministry before his crucifixion. I imagine their worried faces, their nervous laughter and fidgeting hearts. I think they must be a lot like me. Maybe when they would lie on their beds at the end of the day at that time when there is too little to distract us from the constant rumbling of our worried minds they, like me, felt unstable and afraid that Jesus' love would change. 

All we know are changing loves. Loves that come and go because as soon as we seem to have arrived we find we are not content and feel ourselves moving toward something else, some other shot at finding that thing or place or person that can make us feel whole or at least momentarily valuable, or at our worst times just numb us utterly so that we don't have to face ourselves, so that we can escape the danger of the stillness before sleep. The restless time before rest. Maybe our encounters with changeful loves felt more like hatred and we have been left to bleed out a slow death in the places we had put our greatest hopes. 

Here Jesus seems to reach into that nerve-wracking quiet. He clears something up for us. He makes sure we realize that his love for us was not of our making, and so doesn't depend on us. I imagine him saying, "I don't love you because you talked me into it. Not because you did something great and I owe you. Not even because I'm God and I have a reputation to keep. None of this was your idea. I have zero obligation toward you.  I just made up my mind to love you. That's all." 

No one ever died for someone because they nagged them. (Though I suppose it is possible to nag someone to death.) Even if someone did die out of obligation after demanding there would likely be little love in that death. Someone might die out of pride because it made them feel like a hero. They might die out of guilt because they knew the real darkness of their own heart. 

But Jesus dies with no strings attached. The only contingency for his love is his own free will. And he says he has made his choice.