[Image: Friends, 2013, JA Van Devender}
Location: Inner Harbor, Baltimore, MD.
John 15:13–15 (NKJV)
13 Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. 14 You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. 15 No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.
This couple warmed my heart as I watched them. I do not know how intimate was their relationship... they may have just met... they may be married... they may be co-workers sharing a lunch break (it was shortly after noon). Their story may not be as warm as the image they evoked but sitting there, sharing time with each other and some bread crumbs or nuts with the gulls spoke to me at least.
Human beings are not the only companionable creatures. There are myriads of stories of dogs (especially, I know of none about cats) whose delight in their human companions was unbounded. There is that famous little dog up north, I forget where, which spent every night sleeping on his master's grave after he had died. The little village opened their heart to him and he would make the rounds during the day to be fed scraps but at night he always slept with his master. If I remember correctly they erected a monument to him after he died. This was friendship that death could not touch.
So humans are not the only companionable creatures... but it is a warped human soul at least that does not value friendship with anyone. Furthermore, when I speak of true friendship I necessarily am referring to a very limited condition. A finite human being cannot be true friends with everyone... nor even a lot... by definition, finite human friendship is an intimate thing, often taking significant time to develop and creates such vulnerability that trust has to be gained before friendship is truly accomplished. The confusion of terms, "acquaintance" and "friend", that is so prevalent in our society is because true friendship is so rare. Without knowing and enjoying such "friendships", all relations blur into mediocrity and the focus is primarily inward in those. Relationships are as disposable as the styrofoam cups from which we drink simply because we value them so little.
The idea of "giving one's life for our friends" is a strange concept to us not because we are inherently more selfish I think, though that certainly is one aspect, but mostly because we don't have any friends to start with. If we truly valued a person as a friend it would be a powerful incentive to do whatever we could for that person even to the point of sacrificing ourselves.
How absent this is from our culture... even in many marriages.
So I hope these young folk are true friends... across their social barriers... across their racial distinctions... across the gap that stretches unseen in modern conversations. I hope they know what it means to simply be "fulfilled" in another person's company especially in silence and contemplation. I hope they have sat together, each lost in his or her own thoughts, pondering significant questions, only to discover when at last they speak, that they were both thinking the same thing. I hope they have experienced the joy that comes from receiving some inexpensive momento from the other... that exactly encapsulates a common experience they shared... which will become a precious reminder preserved through the years, evoking smiles even in old age.
Feeding the birds, warmed by the sun though the surrounding temperature was quite chilly, under brilliant blue skies - quiet in the midst of chaos - could be one such memory. I hope it was.
Human beings are so constituted that apart from these types of relationships, we lead warped and empty lives. We are designed to be companions. In Scriptural terms Eve was created as a "helper, suitable to Adam" - and that description beautifully sums up true friendship. It is a helping relation, exactly tailored to our whole being, that fills us out and completes our humanity.
The Lord Jesus Christ was truly human. As such, He also "needed" (in a very tightly constrained sense) friends. He was "one" with His Father in heaven but to be truly a creature, He needed to be "friends" with other humans... to fulfill all righteousness. It was for His "friends" that He gave up His life for His joy in them was complete when they were made complete in their joy. The mutual delight of giving, receiving, responding and returning, that constitutes true friendship is the bond of faith fully experienced. Of course we love others who love Christ. Why??? Because we love the Christ in them. He is our friend... and the friend of our friend is our friend. The way is open for human flourishing because the bonds of friendship are set on a firm foundation... a foundation that will never crumble nor disappoint.
Do you know Jesus? He's my Friend.
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