A Close Friend

John 15:9-17 New International Version (NIV)

9 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10 If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. 11 I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13 Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17 This is my command: Love each other.

Please take a moment to recall your closest friend.  The person whom you share the highest of highs and the lowest of lows with.  Recall that one person or small group of people who know more about what makes you tick than the rest of the world.  Think about the person or small group of people who know your struggles and celebrate your victories. You may not speak every day or even weekly but you undoubtedly “get” each other.  You may go several days or weeks without speaking but that gap in time is always bridged with conversations that are unbound by the space that may separate you. Think about the lengths you would go for that person.  Think about the sacrifices you would make or have made on their behalf. It is difficult to think of Jesus like this, however. We often see Jesus as some sort of rockstar or famous athlete in the sense that we can see them but we can’t really get close to them.  We see him as someone we may get a quick picture with back stage or view from a distance. We often view Jesus as something to aspire to, not to connect with.

In all reality, Jesus wants to be more like that really close friend that I asked you to think about than someone famous we only get the opportunity to spend a couple moments with.  At different times in our lives, we have these really close experiences with Jesus. Perhaps it was our conversion or our baptism or when we really relied on him to help us out of a jam when we experienced a closeness with Jesus.  What if I told you, Jesus desires that sort of closeness on a daily basis. Jesus desires to be your best friend. He wants to be a part of your struggles and to celebrate your victories. He desires to have a relationship with you like the one you recalled about your best friend.  And he desires that no matter what you have been through or what you are currently going through.

If your like me, there are these ebbs and flows when it comes to faith.  There are moments of perfect clarity where it seems that nothing can separate you from your faith.  There are also moments of a foggy haze that feels like the Grand Canyon separates you from God. We often celebrate God in those moments of clarity and turn around to blame Him for the haze.  We think it is God that is either bringing us closer or pulling Himself away from us. I believe those moments, whether they are good or bad, are a direct reflection of us and the current state of our heart and mind than it is God’s desire to be close to us.  I think of King David and his Psalms in this situations. Some Psalms are a celebration of God’s closeness to David and some are a lament of the gap between them. Again, I think this is a direct reflection of David more than God. The reality is that God is always close.  He is always that best friend. However, the current state of our faith affects our perception of God in that moment. For example, I can write certain sermons that just seem to come easy as if God is directing me every step of the way. And some sermons are a struggle and it seems like I am going about it on my own.  The difference between the two is not God, it is my perception of Him in that moment and reflection of where my faith is. It is not God creating a gap between the two of us, it is me.

I think that is why our scripture for this morning is so incredible crucial.  We must remain in Jesus’ love. We must abide there, make a permanent home there.  We sometimes view that closeness to Jesus as a vacation home or a camper than a permanent residence.  We see it as a place to go when needed or when we have time. The truth is that God desires for us to make that closeness our everyday, our every moment, home.  

Verse 13 says, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”  Jesus gave his life for us. He gave his physical life for us. And this verse recently came up in the audiobook I am listening to.  If you allow me to go full out nerd for a couple moments, I would like to better explain this verse. Without getting to technical and drudging through every aspect of the Greek translations, we often view this passage as meaning to “physically die” for the benefit of our friends.  This is how I have taken this scripture to be translated and I am sure you have taken it to mean the same thing. However, there is a difference. The Greek for “laying down one’s life” is made up of two greek words: tithemi (tith-ay-mee) and psuche (psoo-khay) which translates to place, lay or set aside one's breath or soul.  In contrast, “to die” in Greek is apothnesko (ap-oth-nace-ko).  The latter appears in the New Testament 111 times as it stresses the significance of the separation that always comes from divine closure and stresses the ending of what is former to bring about what naturally follows.  I know that is technical but the difference is important. What Jesus did for us falls into the apothnesko category and what Jesus is calling us to do for our friends is to set aside or purpose our breathe for them.  For clarification, Jesus is not asking us to physically give up our life for our friends; rather, it would be like dropping everything you are currently doing to go help a friend move or change a tire alongside the road.  You are not perishing so they may live but you are sacrificing your time (your breath) to help them in that moment.

Chances are, we do this all the time and do not really realize it.  We still may think we aren’t really living up to this scripture because we have taken it to mean that we have to die for our friends but really we may live by this scripture on a daily basis.  The point of explaining the difference is this: had I not had a desire and a willingness to try to be better about staying closer to God, I would have never discovered this difference. Before listening to that book, I did not know the difference and always felt like verse 13 was a little extreme in how it related to our faith.  There are a very few people I would physically die for in everyday situations, of course there are extremes, but I would set aside a few moments to help out anyone that I could. It becomes more about the sacrifice of time and/or resources than it does about dying for the faith of someone else. Jesus already took care of that. He died for all.  You see, there are things we discover about ourselves and our faith when we are willing to be close to God.

God is not separating Himself from us.... Ever.  It is our willingness to make Jesus a close friend that either shrinks or expands that gap.  When we remain in the love God demonstrated to us through his son, setting aside a few moments of our time to help someone in need seems doable.  Not that we are looking for the easy way out but following Jesus’ command to “love each other” seems much easier to do when thought of in the way I just demonstrated versus what we maybe previously believed it to entail.