Jesus Is a Friend of Yours

There is a risk involved in love and friendship, and there is a cost in the giving of yourself to and for another person. Not only do you invest and expend yourself by doing so, but you are also then open and vulnerable to being hurt in many and various ways.

To make yourself weak in this way — in genuine love and friendship — is actually an exercise and demonstration of real strength, which does not seek its own protection and advantage, but extends itself to serve and protect and do good unto others, even at great cost, and often without thanks.

The Lord Jesus has exercised the greatest strength — and the greatest Love — by giving Himself for you and laying down His life for you. He has chosen to do so in Love, and He has loved you in this way, not because you were His friend, but while you were His enemy, at odds with Him in your sin! He did so in order to befriend you; or, rather, He has befriended you precisely by and with and in this great Love for you, that He has given Himself into death upon the Cross for you.

He has paid this tremendous cost to love you and to be your Friend. And He has taken this great risk to open Himself to you, to reveal and give Himself to you, and to make Himself vulnerable.

Thus, for the sake of His great Love, and because of His great Love — for you and all the world — He was hated and persecuted and put to death. And, indeed, by His closest friends on earth He was variously betrayed, abandoned, denied, and doubted.

You also have tasted the risks and the costs of love and friendship; and once bitten, twice shy, it is tempting to flee from all your neighbors, to retreat and withdraw into yourself, and by all means and at all costs to guard and protect yourself, your heart, body, and life, from everyone else.

But the Lord Jesus has chosen you in Love, He has called you to Himself, and He has appointed you to go and bear good fruits in His Name. Such good fruits are the fruits of His Cross, and they are the fruits of love, whereby you love one another as the dear Lord Jesus loves you.

He has befriended you. You, now, be a friend of His. Live as He lives. Love as He loves.

That does mean bearing the cost — and so, too, bearing the Cross — of genuine friendship for your neighbor. Really, it is more than friendship, because it means divine Love even for those who hate and persecute you. It means that you forgive those who sin against you and gladly do them good.

To know and love Christ Jesus means that you take the risk of loving and serving and caring for your neighbors in the world. You make yourself vulnerable and weak, and you open yourself up to hurt and rejection, in the certainty of God’s love for you in Christ Jesus, your Savior and Friend.

That is what the Holy Apostles did, including St. Simon and St. Jude. That is what they did, and that is how they lived, in going forth to bear the good fruits of the Cross according to their calling and appointment as preachers of Christ Jesus, like the Old Testament Prophets before them.

It was definitely a risk for them to be identified and known as friends of Jesus. But, loving Him, and loving the world for which He died, they preached faithfully in His Name. And for that dear Name, for their preaching of Christ Jesus, they were hated, persecuted, and finally put to death.

Was it worth the risk, and was it worth the cost of their bodies and their lives? Indeed, it was.

Their love was not pointless or meaningless, nor was their friendship with Jesus foolish.

On the one hand, as the Lord Jesus had chosen them in love, called them to Himself, befriended them, and named them with His own Name, so did He bring them through death into divine, eternal Life with Himself, in the righteousness of His own Resurrection from the dead.

And on the other hand, their faithful preaching and administration of the Gospel, though it met with such hostility and violence, did also bear the good fruits of the Cross of Christ Jesus; and by that Gospel of the Cross the Church grew, increased, and spread abroad. Those who once were far off were called to the friendship of Jesus, and they were born again to a new and living hope.

So also have you been called and born again to that same hope in the Resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead.

That is the sure and certain hope in which you now take the risk and pay the cost of love for the Lord who loves you, and for one another, for your family and friends, for your fellow Christians and your neighbors in the world, and so also for those who hurt you and take advantage of you.

The Church into which you have been called by the Spirit through the Gospel — the household and family of God — the circle of Jesus’ friends! — the Temple and City of God, on earth as it is in heaven — this Church is not a “safe haven” in the sense that you would be free to continue in your sins, to avoid the costs and risks of love and friendship, or to set aside the Cross of Christ.

But the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, which is the Body of Jesus Christ the Crucified — this Holy Christian Church to which you belong by the grace of God — is a sure refuge of repentance and faith, in which you are rescued from your sins and set free to bear the Cross in love.

You have heard the Commandment of your dear Lord Jesus Christ, that you love one another. That is the life to which He has appointed you as a friend of His.

He knows the risks that you will face in this world. He knows the cost that you will pay for His friendship. He knows the hurts and heartaches. He knows the disappointments and deep sorrows.

But, just as He has all things from His Father, so does He give Himself and His own Life to you.

Indeed, He knows all the risks and all the costs confronting you, because He has borne them for you unto death — and God has raised Him from the dead. So does He raise you, also, in Himself.

Again, the Church is not a “robber’s den,” to which you could “run away” and where you might “hide out” from the Lord and from your neighbor. But it is a place of peace and rest and safety for you and all whom the Lord has befriended in love by the Ministry of His Gospel.

Here within His Church all your sins are freely and fully forgiven. Here you are safe, and here you are loved by God Himself in the Flesh. Here you are fed with the good Fruits of His Cross. Here you are given the Life of your dear Lord Jesus Christ. And though you do not yet see Him — but you love Him and believe in Him, by grace through faith in His Word — what is now revealed to you by the Gospel, under the Cross, shall be openly revealed in the Glory of His Resurrection at the last, when your faith and life in Christ Jesus will be shown to be more precious than gold.

As it was for St. Simon and St. Jude and all the Holy Apostles, so it is for you and all the friends of Jesus, and so shall it be for you and all the faithful, forever and forevermore.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.