“Wishing to be friends is quick work, but friendship is a slow ripening fruit.” That’s a quote from the Greek philosopher Aristotle. How do you make friends with someone? According to a study from the University of Kansas, one of the biggest factors* is simply time. Roughly speaking, it takes 50 hours together to go from being “acquaintances” to “casual friends”, 90 hours to *go from “casual friend” to “friend”, and over 200 hours to become “close friends”. Time spent face-to-face is the best for building friendships, unsurprisingly. And you can’t be friends with everyone. The time required makes it impossible, and* both of the individuals need to want to put in the necessary time. But it’s definitely time well spent. The study confirmed it, but you don’t really need any study to tell you: *Having friends makes you a happier person.**
That study looked at four different degrees of friendship: Acquaintance, Casual Friend, Friend, and Close Friend. You can probably think of people in your life and how they fit one or the other of those categories. What about Jesus? What kind of a friend is Jesus? Jesus isn’t a friend in the way that other people are our friends. He isn’t like* an old *roommate from college. And yet, Jesus says, “You are my friends.”**
This was something that Jesus said to his disciples on Maundy Thursday, when they were gathered to celebrate the Passover.* The disciples had known Jesus for several years at this point as their teacher, their Rabbi. I think for any teacher it would be a pretty significant thing to say to a student, “I consider you my friend.” That’s not normally the kind of relationship teachers and students have. *But for as significant and unexpected as that might be today,* it was even more the case in those days. A Rabbi was not his disciples’ friend**. He was the master, and they were the servants. *The cost of learning from a wise teacher was that you did whatever that teacher wanted; you waited on him, hand and foot.**
And even though we wouldn’t think of Jesus as that sort of demanding Rabbi, Jesus really was a teacher and master who deserved that kind of respect and far more. Because he wasn’t just a wise and talented teacher. He was the only Son of God. If there’s a distance between two people in the roles of teacher and student, how much greater the distance between man and God! But here stands our God speaking to mortal men, saying, “I no longer call you servants. You are my friends.”
Sadly, we’re living in a time where we often struggle even with what it means to be friends. One in five men say that they have zero close friends. Less than half of women and less than a quarter of men say that they receive emotional support from a friend. Do we love our friends? Our society has mangled that word so much that we hesitate to say so. Love, that’s about romance, right? No. Jesus says, “As the Father has loved me, so also I have loved you. Remain in my love.”
And Jesus also explains how we remain in his love. He says,
If you hold on to my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have held on to my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you these things so that my joy would continue to be in you and that your joy would be complete.
This is completely backwards from how we normally make friends. Think about it. You meet someone somewhere, maybe here at church, maybe at work, or maybe at some kids’ event. You get talking. You ask each others’ names. Now you’re acquaintances. You see that person again, maybe the next day at work or the next week at church. You talk again and find out more about each other. It turns out you have some things in common. You both have the same favorite movie or favorite restaurant. You spend more time talking with this acquaintance until you are casual friends, and eventually friends, maybe even close friends. Or maybe it goes the other way, and back when you were just acquaintances you found out that the two of you really weren’t all that similar. Maybe the other person really loves the wrong sports team. Maybe your tastes are totally different. Maybe you just can’t find that much to talk about.
Jesus doesn’t even talk about what sorts of requirements there are or what you need to do to become his friend. He goes right to “I have loved you. Now remain in my love. Remain my friend.”
And he tells us how to remain his friends. He says, “Hold on to my commands.”
We all have expectations of our friends. If your friend is talking about you behind your back, is lying to you, is stealing from you, or taking advantage of you in some other way, that person probably won’t remain your friend.
Jesus has never failed us as our friend. He tells us to love one another just as he has loved us, in the same perfect way. He even says, “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.” And that’s exactly what he did.
And how have we reciprocated? How have we repaid our perfect friend? That’s not an easy question, is it? We’d like to say we’ve been good friends, that we’ve repaid our dear friend Jesus in every way. That’s what friends are supposed to be. But how very far short we’ve fallen! Love as Jesus has loved? Lay down my life for my friends? I haven’t even come close.
Follow Jesus’ instructions? Hold on to his commands? Sure, when they’re convenient. When they don’t require too much effort. When they fit with what I want. When they don’t require any sacrifice.
Is it because we don’t see Jesus that his friendship sometimes seems so unimportant? Or do we think of him as an overbearing friend, one who asks too much? But if there’s no other friend in the world like Jesus, how terrible it would be to lose his friendship! Could that happen to you? Could you be the one standing outside knocking on the door on the day that Jesus gathers his friends into the banquet hall for his feast? Could you be the one calling out, “Lord, Lord!” and hearing him respond, “I never knew you.”?
Surely if we are to rely on our own worthiness to be and remain Jesus’ friends then it’s hopeless. What can we possibly bring to this relationship? What can we offer to Jesus, to whom belongs all things?
But Jesus himself is the one who reassures us, not based on our works, but based on his promise. He says,
I have called you friends, because everything that I heard from my Father, I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will endure, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17These things I am instructing you, so that you love one another.”
It wasn’t because you were such a good friend that Jesus died for you. No, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. He chose you even before the world was made. His promise to you is that of a friend who is always faithful, who always forgives. His desire for you is not that you earn his friendship, but that you go out in his friendship, free from sin, to love one another.
It wasn’t 200 hours of time spent face-to-face that made us friends with Jesus, the way that we become close friends with other people. It was his cross. It was his selfless, self-sacrificing love. This is a different kind of friendship. It isn’t an acquaintance, or a casual friend, or a friend, or even a close friend. It’s a Christian friend. This kind of friendship is characterized not by having the same interests and hobbies, but by the forgiveness of sins won for us at the cross. It’s a friendship that transcends every kind of earthly friendship. Jesus is God and Lord. He’s eternal and all-powerful. He’s Ruler and Judge. And he says to us who were his enemies because of our sins, who were, as David said, “I am a worm and not a man” – to us he says, “No, you are my friends.”
This Christian friendship shapes our whole life. It describes who we are and how we should see ourselves. We’re chosen by Jesus, baptized into him. And so we have confidence before God, to pray in his name. “You can decide what’s best, God, but I just thought I’d ask, since, you know, I’m Jesus’ friend.”
And it also shapes our relationship with other people. It’s not something we boast about. After all, we didn’t do anything to make ourselves worthy of Jesus’ friendship. But the friendship he has established for us, rooted in his selfless love and forgiveness, is the same kind of friendship he sends us to practice toward one another. He tells us to love one another. Have you noticed that friendship in your life? There are people you hardly know and yet, you love them. You want them to know the joy of the forgiveness of sins the way that you do.
And, dear friends in Christ, this is what Jesus has made us to be. He lives that we might be friends in his name. Whether or not we share the same favorite sports teams, we share the same faith in our Lord Jesus. That’s what Christian friendship is. It comes from Jesus, flowing from his cross, bound together by his word.
No matter how many casual friends, friends, and close friends you have, you have no friend like Jesus. He laid down his life for you, sacrificing himself on the cross to make you no longer his enemy, and not just his servant, but his friend. What a friend we have in Jesus, who lives to hear your prayers, forgive your sins, and fill you with his perfect love. Amen.
— Pastor Seth Georgson