Personal Friendships of Jesus

by J. R. Miller

It is interesting to think of the sinless life of Jesus all these years. There was no halo about his head but the shining of manly character. There were no miracles wrought by his hands but the miracles of duty, faithful service, and gentle kindness. Yet we cannot doubt that his life in Nazareth was one of rare grace and beauty, marked by perfect unselfishness and great helpfulness.

By and by he went away from Nazareth to begin his public ministry as the Messiah. From that time the people saw him no more. The carpenter shop was closed, and the tools lay unused on the bench. The familiar form appeared no more on the streets. A year or more passed, and one day he came back to visit his old neighbors. He stayed a little while, and on the Sabbath was at the village church as had been his wont when his home was at Nazareth. When the opportunity was given him, he unrolled the Book of Isaiah, and read the passage which tells of the anointing of the Messiah, and gives the wonderful outline of his ministry. When he had finished the reading, he told the people that this prophecy was now fulfilled in their ears. That is, he said that he was the Messiah whose anointing and work the prophet had foretold. For a time the people listened spellbound to his gracious words, and then they began to grow angry, that he whom they knew as the carpenter of their village should make such an astounding claim. They rose up in wrath, thrust him out of the synagogue, and would have hurled him over the precipice had he not eluded them and gone on his way.

He had come to them in love, bearing rich blessings; but they drove him away with the blessings. He had come to heal their sick, to cure their blind and lame, to cleanse their lepers, to comfort their sorrowing ones; but he had to go away and leave these works of mercy unwrought, while the sufferers continued to bear their burdens. His friendship for his old neighbors was unrequited.

Another instance of unrequited friendship in the life of Jesus was in the case of the rich young man who came to him. He had many excellent traits of character, and was also an earnest seeker after the truth. We are distinctly told that Jesus loved him. Thus he belongs with Martha and Mary and Lazarus, of whom the same was said. But here, again, the love was unrequited. The young man was deeply interested in Jesus, and wanted to go with him; but he could not pay the price, and turned and went away.

It is interesting to think what might have been the result if he had chosen Christ and gone with him. He might have occupied an important place in the early church, and his name might have lived through all future generations. But he loved his money too much to give it up for Christ, and rejected the way of the cross marked out for him. He refused the friendship of Jesus, and thus threw away all that was best in life. In shutting love out of his heart, he shut himself out from love.

Of all the examples of unrequited friendship in the story of Jesus, that of Judas is the saddest. We do not know the beginning of the story of his discipleship, when Judas first came to Jesus, or who brought him. But he must have been a follower some time before he was chosen to be an apostle. Jesus thought over the names of those who had left all to be with him. Then after a night of prayer he chose twelve of these to be his special messengers and witnesses. He loved them all, and took them into very close relations.

Think what a privilege it was for these men to live with Jesus. They heard all his words. They saw every phase of his life. Some friends it is better not to know too intimately. They are not as good in private as they are in public. Their life does not bear too close inspection. We discover in them dispositions, habits, ways, tempers, feelings, motives, which dim the lustre we see in them at greater distance. Intimacy weakens the friendship. But, on the other hand, there are those who, the more we see of their private life, the more we love them. Close association reveals loveliness of character, fineness of spirit, richness of heart, sweetness of disposition—habits, feelings, tempers, noble self-denials, which add to the attractiveness of the life and the charm of our friend's personality. We may be sure that intimacy with Jesus only made him appear all the more winning and beautiful to his friends. Judas lived in the warmth of this wondrous love, under the influence of this gracious personality, month after month. He witnessed the pure and holy life of Jesus in all its manifold phases, heard his words, and saw his works. Doubtless, too, in his individual relation with the Master, he received many marks of affection and personal friendship.

A careful reading of the Gospels shows that Judas was frequently warned of the very sin which in the end wrought his ruin. Continually Jesus spoke of the danger of covetousness. In the Sermon on the Mount he exhorted his disciples to lay up their treasure, not upon earth, but in heaven, and said that no one could serve God and mammon. It was just this that Judas was trying to do. In more than one parable the danger of riches was emphasized. Can we doubt that in all these reiterations and warnings on the one subject, Judas was in the Master's mind? He was trying in the faithfulness of loyal friendship to save him from the sin which was imperilling his very life.

But Judas resisted all the mighty love of Christ. It made no impression upon him; he was unaffected by it. In his heart there grew on meanwhile, unchecked, unhindered, his terrible greed for money. First it made him a thief. The money given to Jesus by his friends to provide for his wants, or to use for the poor, Judas, who was the treasurer, began at length to purloin for himself. This was the first step. The next was the selling of his Master for thirty pieces of silver. This was a more fearful fruit of his nourished greed than the purloining was. It is bad enough to steal. It is a base form of stealing which robs a church treasury as Judas did. But to take money as the price of betraying a friend—could any sin be baser? Could any crime be blacker than that? To take money as the price of betraying a friend in whose confidence one has lived for years, at whose table one has eaten day after day, in the blessing of whose friendship one has rested for months and years—are there words black enough to paint the infamy of such a deed?

All the participators in the crime of that Good Friday wear a peculiar brand of infamy as they are portrayed on the pages of history; but among them all, the most despicable, the one whose name bears the deepest infamy, is Judas, an apostle turned traitor, for a few miserable coins betraying his best friend into the hands of malignant foes.