Personal Friendships of Jesus

by J. R. Miller

Jesus gave all his rich and blessed life to the service of love. Power was ever going out from him to heal, to comfort, to cheer, to save. He was continually emptying out from the full fountain of his own heart cupfuls of rich life to reinvigorate other lives in their faintness and exhaustion. One of the sources of his own renewing and replenishing was in the friendships he had among men and women. What friends are to us in our human hunger and need, the friends of Jesus were to him. He craved companionship, and was sorely hurt when men shut their doors in his face.

There are few more pathetic words in the New Testament than that short sentence which tells of his rejection, "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." Another pathetic word is that which describes the neglect of those who ought to have been ever eager to show him hospitality: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Even the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven had warmer welcome in this world than he in whose heart was the most gentle love that earth ever knew.

Another word which reveals the deep hunger of the heart of Jesus for friendship and companionship was spoken in view of the hour when even his own apostles would leave him: "Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone." The experience of the garden of Gethsemane also shows in a wonderful way the Lord's craving for sympathy. In his great sorrow he wished to have his best friends near him, that he might lean on them, and draw from their love a little strength for his hour of bitter need. It was an added element in the sorrow of that night that he failed to get the help from human sympathy which he yearned for and expected. When he came back each time after his supplication, he found his apostles sleeping.

These are some of the glimpses which we get in the Gospel story of the longing heart of Jesus. He loved deeply, and sought to be loved. He was disappointed when he failed to find affection. He welcomed love wherever it came to him,—the love of the poor, the gratitude of those whom he had helped, the trusting affection of little children. We can never know how much the friendship of the beloved disciple was to Jesus. What a shelter and comfort the Bethany home was to him, and how his strength was renewed by its sweet fellowship! How even the smallest kindnesses were a solace to his heart! How he was comforted by the affection and the ministries of the women-friends who followed him!

In the chapters of this book which follow, the attempt is made to tell the story of some of the friendships of Jesus, gathering up the threads from the Gospel pages. Sometimes the material is abundant, as in the case of Peter and John; sometimes we have only a glimpse or two in the record, albeit enough to reveal a warm and tender friendship, as in the case of the Bethany sisters, and of Andrew, and of Joseph. It may do us good to study these friendship stories. It will at least show us the humanheartedness of Jesus, and his method in blessing and saving the world. The central fact in every true Christian life is a personal friendship with Jesus. Men were called to follow him, to leave all and cleave to him, to believe on him, to trust him, to love him, to obey him; and the result was the transformation of their lives into his own beauty. That which alone makes one a Christian is being a friend of Jesus. Friendship transforms—all human friendship transforms. We become like those with whom we live in close, intimate relations. Life flows into life, heart and heart are knit together, spirits blend, and the two friends become one.

We have but little to give to Christ; yet it is a comfort to know that our friendship really is precious to him, and adds to his joy, poor and meagre though its best may be—but he has infinite blessings to give to us. "I call you friends." No other gift he gives to us can equal in value the love and friendship of his heart. When Cyrus gave Artabazus, one of his courtiers, a gold cup, he gave Chrysanthus, his favorite, only a kiss. And Artabazus said to Cyrus, "The cup you gave me was not so good gold as the kiss you gave Chrysanthus." No good man's money is ever worth so much as his love. Certainly the greatest honor of this earth, greater than rank or station or wealth, is the friendship of Jesus Christ. And this honor is within the reach of every one. "Henceforth I call you not servants … I have called you friends." "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."

The stories of the friendships of Jesus when he was on the earth need cause no one to sigh, "I wish that I had lived in those days, when Jesus lived among men, that I might have been his friend too, feeling the warmth of his love, my life enriched by contact with his, and my spirit quickened by his love and grace!" The friendships of Jesus, whose stories we read in the New Testament, are only patterns of friendships into which we may enter, if we are ready to accept what he offers, and to consecrate our life to faithfulness and love.

The friendship of Jesus includes all other blessings for time and for eternity. "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's." His friendship sanctifies all pure human bonds—no friendship is complete which is not woven of a threefold cord. If Christ is our friend, all life is made rich and beautiful to us. The past, with all of sacred loss it holds, lives before us in him. The future is a garden-spot in which all life's sweet hopes, that seem to have perished on the earth, will be found growing for us.

"Fields of the past to thee shall be no more
The burialground of friendships once in bloom,
But the seed-plots of a harvest on before,
And prophecies of life with larger room
For things that are behind.

Live thou in Christ, and thy dead past shall be
Alive forever with eternal day;
And planted on his bosom thou shall see
The flowers revived that withered on the way
Amid the things behind."