Jesus Died to be Your Friend - John 15:9-17

Last week, we heard Jesus talk about vines and branches. Most of us don’t know much about those things. We plant gardens, we raise vegetables, we have fields of grass and grain, but very few of us know much about vines and branches, about grafting and pruning and such things. It’s just not our wheelhouse.

This week, Jesus speaks of friendship. Now, that’s something we can understand. We have lots of friends, of varying degrees of closeness. If you think of it like a bullseye, out here we have acquaintances – people we know casually, like at work or school. We know their names, maybe a little about him or her, just enough that we can say hi and have a quick conversation. But, if push came to shove, the acquaintance probably isn’t someone you would hang around with. You wouldn’t invite them to a party or go to a movie with them, take them dancing or out to dinner with them. Why? Well, you’re acquaintances…that’s all.

Then, there are people with whom we are friendly. Sort of Level Three friends, so to speak. Maybe you played on the same team a few years ago, or worked on a project together, and found you have some common interests, or know some common people. You could talk with these people and not feel uncomfortable, you could sit down at lunch and carry on a conversation that has some real meaning. You could talk about some things of substance, but there are still things you don’t talk about. You’re just not *that* close. The Level Two friends are like these, except you’re a little closer.

And then there are the Level One friends. Level One friends are the people nearest and dearest to your heart. We use terms like “best” friend to describe these people – even if we seem to have more than one best friend. These are the people we hang out with all the time, we look for them at lunch, we text them all afternoon, we talk on the phone, we blow up their Instagram pages and tag them constantly in our social media. These are the people who are sometimes even closer than our own brother or sister and, sometimes, we even think of them as family.

And, if you have a friend like that, you have a gift, indeed because a friend like that is a rarity. Friendship, companionship is something that is a core need for human beings. People are not made to be alone. God realized this in the Garden of Eden when He created Eve to be Adam’s helpmate. Outside our parents, and later, when you marry, a friend is a gift and a really good friend is a very, very special gift. Even Solomon, in his wisdom – or, perhaps because of his wisdom – had a difficult time, finding only one upright man among a thousand and no righteous woman at all (Ecc. 7:28).

We yearn for, we long to find that one-in-a-thousand friend, the friend who sticks with us without any strings attached, who loves us for what we are and in spite of what we aren’t, who defends, supports, loves, and cares for us in your time of need and whom we can love reciprocally in their time of hardship. And, men – lest you think this is only for women, I assure you, this is even more true for us, to have a friend who is even more dear than a brother.

There is a fad that comes and goes, to give friendship jewelry. I think girls do this more than boys, but once boys get to a certain age, they will sometimes give a piece of friendship jewelry to a girl. There are friendship rings, friendship bracelets, even friendship necklaces. Some are handmade, some made out of metal. Some are made in pairs or with parts that match like puzzle pieces to show how close their friendship is.

Today, I want to give each of you a friendship gift. In your bag is a wood cross. It’s to remind you of your greatest friend of all, Jesus. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down His life for His friends.” That’s the mark of the truest, greatest friend of all: He is willing to surrender His life for you.

And, here’s the most remarkable thing about it: He dies for friends who wanted nothing to do with Him. He’s speaking to the Twelve on Maundy Thursday evening. In just a few hours from that moment, when He is arrested, all of the disciples will run away and leave Jesus alone. When asked, they’ll deny knowing Him. And when Jesus breathes His last, only His mother and one of the disciples will stand at the foot of the cross to watch Him die.

That was then, we think, this is now. We would never run away. Yes, yes we would. Yes, we will. Yes, we do. We turn the Commandments into mere suggestions that we can pick and chose, twist and manipulate. When friends challenge us to defend our Christian faith, instead of confessing, to preserve a friendship we crawfish and say, “well, it’s just one way to get to heaven.”  Jesus’ name becomes a punchline, God’s name becomes an expletive, our Baptism is only a picture in mom’s photo album, and confirmation is nothing more than a reason to get presents. What a friend we are for Jesus.

Yet, Jesus dies for us for exactly those very reasons. He dies a sinner’s death so we do not. He calls us to repentance in His name, to live in our Baptism knowing that we are great sinners but He is an even greater Savior. Christ’s friendship is grounded in a unique love, far, far different from what the world considers as love. Jesus’ love is unconditional. It’s as if He is saying, I am willing to do something so radical, so remarkable, so reckless that you cannot even begin to imagine it. I do this because I know what you truly need and what is best for you, even if you do not understand, reciprocate it to me, or appreciate what I am about to do for you. I am going to do for you what is in your best interest, even though you hate me because of it. This great love of Jesus leads Him to the cross. He dies for the world – even His friends who betrayed Him, who denied Him, who ran away into the darkness to leave Jesus alone. Jesus dies for you, for me, for a world of sinners. He buries our denials in the grave and He does not bring them back with Him to life. He rises, glorious and victorious so that you can be His friend into eternity. He choses us, His imperfect friends, to be His friends…holding us so dearly that it is as if we are His brothers and sisters.

This friendship is a no-strings-attached relationship. You don’t have to dress like Him, you don’t have to talk like Him, you don’t have to like the things He likes. But we do get to love like Him. That’s His only command, and it’s not a burdensome command. In the Old Testament, there were Ten Commandments. Jesus reduces them to one: love.

Jesus says, “Abide in my love.” Abide means to remain, to sit, to dwell, to stay put. That’s the confession you will make in a few minutes: that you will remain in this faith into which you were baptized. Christ has called you His friend, He has given you the greatest gift of all in His death and resurrection, simply because He loves you. Remain in that love. How? Be here, in His house; receive His gifts; grow in faith; grow in love.

The other way you remain in that love is to love one another. Jesus dies for you with this great love; He died for the person next to you out of the same love. If Jesus loves you and you and you, what else can we do except to love one another as Jesus loved each of us.

There will be days when your friends fail you. There will never be a day when Jesus fails you. He is your greatest friend, willing to give Himself for you. This cross is a reminder of His great love for you. So, keep this cross close. I keep mine on my desk. I have another one in my side-table drawer in my bedroom. I make them and give them as gifts to my friends. But, I’m giving it to you, not to remember me. I’m giving it to you to remember Jesus.

Ralph was dying of cancer. I gave him one of these crosses for his birthday a few months before he died. After that, he had that cross with him practically every moment of every day, awake or asleep; at home or in the hospital. One day, I asked him why keep it literally on his chest all the time and he simply smiled and said, “It reminds me of Jesus.” When he passed away, the family left it in the casket with him. Ralph died with Christ in his baptism 78 years ago. He clung to that cross in his life; he had it with him in death, too.

That’s the beauty of Jesus. He is with us in life and in death, in days when our faith is strong and in days when our faith is weak. He holds us close to Him. Why? Because He is our friend and He loves us enough to die for us. Amen.