“Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:12-13). Jesus spoke those words to His 12 apostles at the Last Supper, the feast that we recreate every Sunday in remembrance of Him.

He defined this “greater love” as part of an admonition for them to love each other — so deeply that they would be willing to die for each other. How deeply? “Just as I have loved you,” Jesus said.

No man ever loved as deeply as Jesus, as Paul explained in Romans 5: “For while we were still helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will hardly die for a righteous person; though perhaps for the good person someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:6-8).

He loved unrighteous men so deeply that He knew and accepted that fate before God even created man in His image.

Think about that. We all like to think we would give our lives in the moment to save those we love the most — like the parents in Uvalde, Texas, who were willing to rush into a building, against the orders of police, to save their own children at risk of their own lives.

But what if the parents knew in advance all of that was going to happen? What if they knew and sent their children into the building anyway? What if they had the power to stop the murder of innocent children and let it unfold? What if the children had the power to call 10,000 police officers into the building to prevent the injustice?

That’s how much God loved us. That’s how much Jesus loved us. And they knew it was going to happen before the beginning of time — before God ever created man in His image, long before God came to Earth as Man in the flesh.

“Greater love had no man than this.” And we live because of it. Let’s remember that love again today as we partake of these emblems that represent the body of Jesus hanging on the cross and the blood that spilled from His body.