What Difference Does Jesus Make in Our Friendship?

Elizabeth Browning, the 19th century British poet, asked Charles Kingsley, the novelist, "What is the secret of your life? Tell me, that I may make mine beautiful also." Thinking a moment, the beloved old author replied, "I had a friend." ¹

Helen Keller said the same thing at the end of her life: "It is my friends that have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways, they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation." ²

Friends. Three times in our passage Jesus uses this word and calls his disciples friends. "You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer… but I have called you friends."

Friends of Jesus. I agree with a pastor I know who said: "Of all the names we might call ourselves, I know of none more appealing. Christians. Disciples of Christ. Believers. Followers. They are all descriptive, but there is something special about being a friend." ³

And this is not the first time in scripture that God’s people are called this. The very first patriarch, Abraham, God calls "my friend" in Isaiah 41:8. God speaks with Moses up on the mountain "as one speaks to a friend" (Ex. 33:11).

From the very beginning God has chosen to relate to us not only as Creator and Master and Deliverer and Lord – God is all those things! – but as a friend. What does it mean to be God’s friend? What does it mean to be a friend?

In this month of appreciating all things Irish, perhaps it is fitting that we turn to the Irish Celts to help us understand the true beauty of friendship. Spiritual friendships were very dear to the Celts, and they believed that it was through the gift of one another that God "kisses us into wholeness" – not the kissing of the mouth but the kissing of the heart.

They had a special term for spiritual friendships: anam chara. Anam is the Irish word for soul, chara for friend, ‘soul friend.’ A ‘soul friend’ was someone with whom you could share your inner self – "all the secrets of your heart" – someone who would believe in you, no matter what.

In the early Irish monastic communities they believed that everybody had to have a soul friend. St. Brigid told one of the members of her monastic community: "A person without a soul-friend is like a body without a head." ⁴ How could you know the stirrings within you without the help of another?

J. Philip Newell, the Scottish author and teacher of Celtic spirituality (whose books I adore), helped me understand the two essential ingredients of friendship that are given to us in Jesus Christ:

1. A friend shows you his or her heart.
2. A friend believes in your heart.

Something changes, doesn’t it, when you open up your heart (your inner self) to another, when all the masks are off and you no longer have anything to hide? The person who knows and understands the real you is no longer a casual acquaintance but a soul friend. Sometimes that happens because you choose to reveal your inner self to another, and sometimes it happens because the person just happened to be there when your life fell apart at the seams and was there for you.

Years ago there was a movie called "Stand By Me." In this movie you get a raw and very realistic glimpse into the friendships of four 12-year-old boys. It’s the weekend before they start Jr. High School and they are out on an adventure together to find a dead body. But it’s not their adventure that captures your attention; it’s the way they interact with each other – the way they need each other.

They all are operating out of some very painful childhood experience. One is overweight and clueless and the brunt of every joke. One is scarred from the abuse of a violent and mentally ill father. One is hardened by neglect. And the main character is suffering from the death of his older superstar brother whom his parents loved more than anyone else on earth, including him.

The four of them form a club and they stick together. They tease each other, they try to act tough together, they get into mischief together and act real gross around each other, as only 12-year-old boys can do. But they are together. They cry tears of pain together and they believe in each other’s strengths.

It’s the kind of movie that makes you very nostalgic about childhood friendships and friendships in general. Those people who know you so well, they’ve seen you at your worst. They have been there when life has been hell. They may not be the most virtuous specimens of humanity around, but they are your friends. The ones who are willing to confide in you, cry with you, share their weaknesses with you, be real with you, show you their heart.

Jesus said, "I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything." Though you are my servants and will always be a servant just like me; I don’t call you that. Though you are my disciples and I am your teacher and always will be; I’m not calling you that either. I’m calling you friends, because who I AM is completely open to you.

Friends of Jesus, a friend of God – wow! In Jesus’ day there was a custom practiced in the courts of the Roman Emperors and the eastern kings. Periodically a very select group of men were called the friends of the king, or the friends of the Emperor. These men had access to the king at all times. They even had the right to come into his bedchamber at the beginning of the day. Before he consulted with anybody else, his generals or his rulers or his statesmen, he talked to them. The friends of the king were those who had the closest and the most intimate connection with the highest power in the land. ⁵

We are those friends!

I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.

No secrets. No masks. Jesus opened up his heart, laid himself bare. And all the disciples were there to witness it, when he was stripped of his rights, stripped of his clothes, stripped of his dignity, stripped of his life. It was his darkest hour, his most vulnerable and painful hour. It was also the hour when his heart of hearts was laid open to the world. God’s heart of hearts, beating and bleeding for us on the cross.

No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you…love one another as I have loved you.

The holiness of a friend, the beauty of a friend is two-fold: your friend reveals his or her very heart and soul to you, and your friend sees the very heart and soul of who you are and believes in you, no matter what.

I think it is that second quality that I appreciate most about my friends. They see through to the very heart of who I am and believe in me even when I have quit believing in myself, which is often. I found this tribute to friendship that seems to express this well.

I love you not only for what you are, but for what I am when I am with you. I love you not only for what you have made of yourself, but for what you are making of me. I love you for the part of me that you bring out.

I love you for putting your hand into my heaped-up heart, and passing over all the foolish and frivolous and weak things which you cannot help dimly seeing there, and for drawing out into the light all the beautiful, radiant belongings, that no one else had looked quite far enough to find.

I love you for ignoring the possibilities of the fool and weakling in me, and for laying firm hold on the possibilities of good in me.

I love you for closing your eyes to the discords in me, and for adding to the music in me by worshipful listening.

I love you because you are helping me to make of the lumber of my life not a tavern but a Temple, and of the words of my every day not a reproach but a song.

I love you because you have done more than any creed could have done to make me good, and more than any fate could have done to make me happy. You have done it just by being yourself. Perhaps that is what being a friend means after all. ⁶

Jesus sees the very heart of who we are and believes in us. Jesus sees the very heart of who we are and knows that we are our best selves when we are giving ourselves away in love. He believes in us so much that he lays down his life to be our friends so that we might be set free from the evil that binds us and keeps us from laying down our lives for one another.

In our nursery school the teachers tell the children that we are learning how to be good friends to each other. That has never sounded particularly Christian to me until now.

This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.

As we behold Jesus on the cross in the weeks to come, we see beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is our friend. It is Jesus on the cross that fully discloses God’s heart to us, and it is Jesus on the cross that discloses how much God believes in us.

The question for us is this: are we a friend to Jesus? What a friend we have in Jesus! But are we a friend, are you a friend to him?