Personal Friendships of Jesus

by J. R. Miller

The institution of the Last Supper showed the craving of the heart of Jesus to be remembered. "Do not forget me when I am gone," he said. That he might not be forgotten, he took bread and wine, and, breaking the one and pouring out the other, he gave them to his friends as mementos of himself. He associated this farewell meal with the great acts of his redeeming love. "This bread which I break, let it be the emblem of my body broken to be bread for the world. This wine which I empty out, let it be the emblem of my blood which I give for you." Whatever else the Lord's Supper may mean, it is first of all a remembrancer; it is the expression of the Master's desire to be remembered by his friends. It comes down to us—Christ's friends of to-day—with the same heart-craving. "Remember me; do not forget me; think of my love for you." Jesus' farewell was thus made wondrously sacred; its memories have blessed the world ever since by their warmth and tenderness. No one can ever know the measure of the influence of that last night in the upper room upon the life of these nineteen Christian centuries.

The Lord's Supper was not all of the Master's farewell. There were also words spoken which have been bread and wine, the body and blood of Jesus, to believers ever since. To the eleven men gathered about that table these words were inexpressibly precious. One of them, one who leaned his head upon the Master's breast that night, remembered them in his old age, and wrote them down, so that we can read them for ourselves.

It is impossible in a short chapter to study the whole of this wonderful farewell address; only a few of its great features can be gathered together. It began with an exhortation, a new commandment,—"That ye love one another." We cannot understand how really new this commandment was when given to the Master's friends. The world had never before known such love as Jesus brought into its wintry atmosphere. He had lived out the divine love among men; now his friends were to continue that love. "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." Very imperfectly have the friends of the Master learned that love; yet wherever the gospel has gone, a wave of tenderness has rolled.

Next was spoken a word of comfort whose music has been singing through the world ever since. "Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me." Unless it be the Twenty-Third Psalm, no other passage in all the Bible has had such a ministry of comfort as the first words of the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel. They told the sorrowing disciples that their Master would not forget them, that his work for them would not be broken off by his death, that he was only going away to prepare a place for them, and would come again to receive them unto himself, so that where he should be they might be also. He assured them, too, that while he was going away, something better than his bodily presence would be given them instead,—another Comforter would come, so that they should not be left orphans.

Part of the Master's farewell words were answers to questions which his friends asked him,—a series of conversations with one and another. These men had their difficulties; and they brought these to Jesus, and he explained them. First, Peter had a question. Jesus had spoken of going away. Peter asked him, "Lord, whither goest thou?" Jesus told him that where he was going he could not follow him then, but he should follow him by and by. Peter was recklessly bold, and he would not have it said that there was any place he could not follow his Master. He declared that he would even lay down his life for his sake. "Wilt thou lay down thy life for my sake?" answered the Master. "Wilt thou, indeed?" Then he foretold Peter's sad, humiliating fall—that, instead of laying down his life for his Lord.

After the words had been spoken about the Father's house and the coming again of Jesus for his friends, Thomas had a question. Jesus had said, "Whither I go ye know, and the way ye know." Thomas was slow in his perceptions, and was given to questioning. He would take nothing for granted. He would not believe until he could understand. "Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way?" We are glad Thomas asked such a question, for it brought a wonderful answer. Jesus himself is the way and the truth and the life. That is, to know Christ is to know all that we need to know about heaven and the way there; to have Christ as Saviour, Friend, and Lord, is to be led by him through the darkest way—home. Not only is he the door or gate which opens into the way, but he is the way. He is the guide in the way; he has gone over it himself; everywhere we find his footprints. More than that; he is the very way itself, and the very truth about the way, and the life which inspires us in the way. To be his friend is enough; we need ask neither whither he has gone, nor the road; we need only abide in him.

"Thank God, thank God, the Man is found,
Sure-footed, knowing well the ground.
He knows the road, for this the way
He travelled once, as on this day.
He is our Messenger beside,
He is our Door and Path and Guide."

Then Philip had a question. He had heard the Master's reply to Thomas. Philip was slow and dull, loyal-hearted, a man of practical common-sense, but without imagination, unable to understand anything spiritual, anything but bare, cold, material facts. The words of Jesus about knowing and seeing the Father caught his ear. That was just what he wanted,—to see the Father. So in his dulness he said, "Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." He was thinking of a theophany,—a glorious vision of God. Jesus was wondrously patient with the dulness of his disciples; but this word pained him, for it showed how little Philip had learned after all his three years of discipleship. "Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me?" Then Jesus told him that he had been showing him the Father, the very thing Philip craved, all the while.

Jesus went on with his gracious words for a little while, and was speaking of manifesting himself to his disciples, when he was interrupted by another question. This time it was Judas who spoke. "Not Iscariot," St. John is careful to say, for the name of Iscariot was now blotted with the blotch of treason. He had gone out into the night, and was of the disciple family no more. Judas could not understand in what special and exclusive manner Jesus would manifest himself to his own. Perhaps he expected some setting apart of Christ's followers like that which had fenced off Israel from the other nations. But Jesus swept away his disciple's thought of any narrow manifestation. There was only one condition—love. To every one who loved him and obeyed his words he would reveal himself. The manifesting would not be any theophany, as in the ancient Shekinah, but the spiritual in-dwelling of God.

After these questions of his disciples had all been answered, Jesus continued his farewell words. He left several bequests to his friends, distributing among them his possessions. We are apt to ask what he had to leave. He had no houses or lands, no gold or silver. While he was on his cross the soldiers divided his clothes among themselves. Yet there are real possessions besides money and estates. One may have won the honor of a noble name, and may bequeath this to his family when he goes away. One may have acquired power which he may transmit. It seemed that night in the upper room as if Jesus had neither name nor power to leave to his friends. To-morrow he was going to a cross, and that would be the end of everything of hope or beauty in his life.