Advent Day 10: Friend

Los Amigos de Jesus (Friends of Jesus), Antonio Fillol Granell, 1900. Oil on canvas, 199 x 278.5 cm. Museo Del Prado, Madrid, Spain. Public Domain.

The Redemption, Roger Wagner, 2009. Oil on board. Used with permission from the artist.

“No One Ever Cared for Me Like Jesus” from the album Forever Amen. Performed by Steffany Gretzinger, Composed by Jason Ingram, Dante Bowe, Steffany Gretzinger, and Chandler Moore.

“How Sweet the Name of Jesus Sounds” Performed by Chris Bowater, Lyrics by John Newton, music by Chris Bowater.

Poetry:

“I Stand and Knock”
by Daniel Priest

All night he was wind leaning on a door
you wanted to open. The whole world
spilled through the hole he’d torn
in his side. He had nothing to say

that wasn’t your name. In his teeth
his own blood turned brown. You had to
see him naked, name those animal scars
in their torchlight contortions. Only then.

Someone saw him through the window
slumped on the porch the prints of his hands
all over everything. They said how much
he must care so you rested then

against the other side, pressed your palms
where his might be, swore you heard your name
under that rough wind. Love is open hands
you kept saying. Love is a door.

A Friend

​​Jesus liked to hang out with his friends. He often visited his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. He would come to their home to eat with them and enjoy conversation (as he appears to have just done in the home of the poor family of fishermen in the painting by Granell—did they serve him fish or eels?) Jesus took time from his great mission to be with his friends. Actually, it would be more accurate to say the point of his mission was to be with friends.

This appears to be John’s perspective in his telling of the Advent story: The son of God, who created the world and gave life to humans came into the world as a human in order to dwell with us (John 1:1-18). At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus, the Son, chose a group of disciples to live with him. At the end of his ministry, he calls them friends. The Son wanted to dwell with humans as a friend.

When Jesus calls his disciples––friends––he explains that he calls them friends not servants because while servants don’t know what their master is doing, he has just revealed to them what he and his Father are doing: they are coming to make their home with anyone who loves the Son and keeps his word (14:23). Their plan for humanity is to do for all those who come to them what Jesus has done for his twelve disciples: dwell with them as friends.

The contrast Jesus draws between friends and servants makes the way he calls his disciples friends somewhat puzzling: he says, “You are my friends if you do what I command you.” People don’t usually give friends commands or make obedience the condition for their relationship. That’s how they relate to servants.

Three considerations help to resolve this puzzle. First, the aim of Jesus in asking for obedience is not for his benefit, but the benefit of his friends. He wants them to experience the joy that comes from dwelling in his Father’s love, and he knows this is only possible by keeping the Father’s commands which he has passed on to them (15:10-11).

Second, the disciples’ motivation for obedience: in contrast to servants, who obey commands for wages, out of obligation or duty, or because they have no choice, Jesus expects his followers to obey him because they love him. They love him because he first loved them—even laying down his life for them as a friend.

Third, what Jesus commands: “This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.” Jesus is not commanding that the disciples do a job for him like servants; he is commanding that they form a community of friends who love each other with the kind of self-giving love that he has for them.

Jesus is about to leave his friends, and he knows they will no longer enjoy his physical presence and the time they have spent hanging out together as friends. He wants them, and all who come to love him, to continue to experience his personal presence. He will accomplish this through the Spirit he will send them (14:16-17)—and also through each other when they obey his command to love each other as he did. In the words of the philosopher, John Macmurray: “The friendship of Christ is realized in our friendships with one another.” Christians experience Jesus dwelling with them as a friend when they hang out with each other.

Jesus is knocking at your door, he wants to come in and eat with you as your friend, to dwell with you, to hang out. The way to open the door and be his friend is to obey his command to love his other friends the way he loves you. He wants you to knock on the door of one of his friends (or open when they knock) so that you can hang out together as friends.

Prayer
Jesus, thank you for being my friend. Thank you for laying down your life so that you could dwell with me. It’s hard to believe that you enjoy my company, but you do. Empower me by your Spirit to do what you ask and be a friend to your friends. Help me make friendship with you—and your friends—the aim of all I do.
Amen

Dr. Joe Henderson
Associate Professor of the Old Testament
Torrey Honors College
Biola University

For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, please visit our website via the link in our bio.