Personal Friendships of Jesus

by J. R. Miller

He seeks not thine, but thee, such as thou art,
For lo, his banner over thee is love.
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.

If you loved only what were worth your love,
Love were clear gain, and wholly well for you.
Make the low nature better by your throes!
Give earth yourself, go up for gain above.
BROWNING.

Nothing in life is more important than the choosing of friends. Many young people wreck all by wrong choices, taking into their life those who by their influence drag them down. Many a man's moral failure dates from the day he chose a wrong friend. Many a woman's life of sorrow or evil began with the letting into her heart of an unworthy friendship. On the other hand, many a career of happiness, of prosperity, of success, of upward climbing, may be traced to the choice of a pure, noble, rich-hearted, inspiring friend. Mrs. Browning asked Charles Kingsley, "What is the secret of your life? Tell me, that I may make mine beautiful too." He replied, "I had a friend." There are many who have reached eminence of character or splendor of life who could give the same answer. They had a friend who came into their life at the right time, sent from God, and inspired in them whatever is beautiful in their character, whatever is worthy and noble in their career.

We may not put our Lord's choice of his apostles on precisely the same plane as our selecting of friends, as those men were to be more than ordinary friends; he was to put his mantle upon them, and they were to be the founders of his Church. Nevertheless, we may take lessons from the story for ourselves.

Jesus chose his friends deliberately. His disciples had been gathering about him for months. It was at least a year after the beginning of his public ministry that he chose the Twelve. He had had ample time to get well acquainted with the company of his followers, to test them, to study their character, to learn their qualities of strength or weakness.

Many fatal mistakes in the choosing of friends come from unfit haste. We would better take time to know our possible friends, and be sure that we know them well, before making the solemn compact that seals the attachment.

Jesus made his choice of friends a subject of prayer. He spent a whole night in prayer with God, and then came in the morning to choose his apostles. If Jesus needed thus to pray before choosing his friends, how much more should we seek God's counsel before taking a new friendship into our life! We cannot know what it may mean to us, whither it may lead us, what sorrow, care, or pain it may bring to us, what touches of beauty or of marring it may put upon our soul, and we dare not admit it unless God gives it to us. In nothing do young people need more the guidance of divine wisdom than when they are settling the question of who shall be their friends. At the Last Supper Jesus said in his prayer, referring to his disciples, "Thine they were, and thou gavest them me." It makes a friendship very sacred to be able to say, "God gave it to me. God sent me this friend."

In choosing his friends, Jesus thought not chiefly of the comfort and help they would be to him, but far more of what he might be to them. He did crave friendship for himself. His heart needed it just as any true human heart does. He welcomed affection whenever any one brought the gift to him. He accepted the friendship of the poor, of the children, of those he helped. We cannot understand how much the Bethany home was to him, with its confidence, its warmth, its shelter, its tender affection. One of the most pathetic incidents in the whole Gospel story is the hunger of Jesus for sympathy in the garden, when he came again and again to his human friends, hoping to find them alert in watchful love, and found them asleep. It was a cry of deep disappointment which came from his lips, "Could ye not watch with me one hour?" Jesus craved the blessing of friendship for himself, and in choosing the Twelve expected comfort and strength from his fellowship with them.

But his deepest desire was that he might be a blessing to them. He came "not to be ministered unto, but to minister;" not to have friends, but to be a friend. He chose the Twelve that he might lift them up to honor and good; that he might purify, refine, and enrich their lives; that he might prepare them to be his witnesses, the conservators of his gospel, the interpreters to the world of his life and teachings. He sought nothing for himself, but every breath he drew was full of unselfish love.

We should learn from Jesus that the essential quality in the heart of friendship is not the desire to have friends, but the desire to be a friend; not to get good and help from others, but to impart blessing to others. Many of the sighings for friendship which we have are merely selfish longings,—a desire for happiness, for pleasure, for the gratification of the heart, which friends would bring. If the desire were to be a friend, to do others good, to serve and to give help, it would be a far more Christlike longing, and would transform the life and character.