The Friendships of Jesus E-Book

James Russell Miller

• Herausgeber: Darolt Books
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Serie: Hope messages in times of crisis
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2020

Seitenzahl: 213

Beschreibung

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. 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." John 15:13-15 George MacDonald said in an address, "The longer I live, the more I am assured that the business of life, is to understand the Lord Jesus Christ." If this is true, whatever sheds even a little light on the character or life of Christ, is worth while. Nothing reveals a man's heart, better than his friendships. The kind of friend he istells the kind of man he is. The personal friendships of Jesus reveal many tender and beautiful things in his character. They show us also what is possible for us in divine friendship; for the heart of Jesus is the same yesterday, and today, and forever. These chapters are only suggestivenot exhaustive. If they make the way into close personal friendship with Jesus any plainer for those who hunger for such blessed intimacythat will be reward enough.

Leseprobe

PREFACE

"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are My friends if you do what I command. 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." John 15:13-15

George MacDonald said in an address, "The longer I live, the more I am assured that the business of life, is to understand the Lord Jesus Christ." If this is true, whatever sheds even a little light on the character or life of Christ, is worth while.

Nothing reveals a man's heart, better than his friendships. The kind of friend he istells the kind of man he is. The personal friendships of Jesus reveal many tender and beautiful things in his character. They show us also what is possible for us in divine friendship; for the heart of Jesus is the same yesterday, and today, and forever.

These chapters are only suggestivenot exhaustive. If they make the way into close personal friendship with Jesus any plainer for those who hunger for such blessed intimacythat will be reward enough.

1. The Human-heartedness of Jesus

2. Jesus and his Mother

3. Jesus and his Forerunner

4. Jesus' Conditions of Friendship

5. Jesus choosing his Friends

6. Jesus and the Beloved Disciple

7. Jesus and Peter

8. Jesus and Thomas

9. Jesus' Unrequited Friendships

10. Jesus and the Bethany Sisters

11. Jesus comforting his Friends

12. Jesus and His Secret Friends

13. Jesus' farewell to His Friends

14. Jesus as a Friend

Chapter 1

The Human-heartedness of Jesus

There is a natural tendency to think of Jesus as different from other men in the human element of his personality. Our adoration of him as our divine Lord, makes it seem almost sacrilege to place his humanity in the ordinary rank with that of other men. It seems to us that life could not have meant the same to himthat it means to us. It is difficult for us to conceive of him as learning in childhood, as other children have to learn. We find ourselves fancying that he must always have known how to read and write and speak. We think of the experiences of his youth and young manhood, as altogether unlike those of any other boy or young man in the village where he grew up. This same feeling leads us to think of his temptation as so different from what temptation is to other men, as to be really no temptation at all.

So we are apt to think of all the human life of Jesus, as being in some way lifted up out of the rank of ordinary experiences. We do not conceive of him as having the same struggles that we have in meeting trial, in enduring injury and wrong, in learning obedience, patience, meekness, submission, trust, and cheerfulness. We conceive of his friendships as somehow different from other men's. We feel that in some mysterious way, his human life was supported and sustained by the deity that dwelt in him, and that he was exempt from all ordinary limiting conditions of humanity.

There is no doubt that with many people, this feeling of reverence has been in the way of the truest understanding of Jesus, and ofttimes those who have clung most devoutly to a belief in his deityhave missed much of the comfort which comes from a proper comprehension of his humanity.

Yet the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels furnishes no ground for any confusion on the subject of his human life. It represents him as subject to all ordinary human conditions, excepting sin. He began life as every infant begins, in feebleness and ignorance; and there is no hint of any unusual development. He learnedas every child must learn. The lessons were not gotten easilyor without diligent study. He played as other boys did, and with them. The more we think of the youth of Jesus as in no marked way unlike that of those among whom he livedthe truer will our thought of him be.

Millais the great artist, when he was a young man, painted an unusual picture of Jesus, He represented him as a little boy in the home at Nazareth. He has cut his finger on some carpenter's tool, and comes to his mother to have it bound up. The picture is really one of the truest of all the many pictures of Jesus, because it depicts just such a scene as ofttimes may have been witnessed in his youth. Evidently there was nothing in his life in Nazareth that drew the attention of his companions and neighbors to him in any striking way. We know that he wrought no miracles until after he had entered upon his public ministry. We can think of him as living a life of unselfishness and kindness. There was never any sin or fault in him; he always kept the law of God perfectly. But his perfection was not something startling. There was no halo about his head, that awed men. We are told that he grew in favor with men as well as with God. His piety made his life beautiful and winning, but always so simple and natural that it drew no unusual attention to itself. It was richly and ideally human.

So it was unto the end. Through the years of his public ministry, when his words and works burned with divine revealing, he continued to live an altogether natural human life. He ate and drank; he grew weary and faint; he was tempted in all points like as we are, and suffered, being tempted. He learned obedience by the things that he endured. He hungered and thirsted, never ministering with his divine power to any of his own needs. "In all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren."

In nothing else is this truth more clearly shown, than in the human-heartedness which was so striking a feature of the life of Jesus among men. When we think of him as the Son of God, the question arises: Did he really care for personal friendships with men and women of the human family? In the home from which he camehe had dwelt from all eternity in the bosom of the Father, and had enjoyed the companionship of the highest angels. What could he find in this world of imperfect, sinful beingsto meet the cravings of his heart for fellowship? Whom could he find among earth's sinful creatures worthy of his friendship, or capable of being in any real sense his personal friend? What satisfaction could his heart find in this world's deepest and holiest love? What light can a dim candle give to the sun? Does the great ocean need the little dewdrop that hides in the bosom of the rose? What blessing or inspiration of love can any poor, marred, stained lifegive to the soul of the Christ?

Yet the Gospels abound with evidences that Jesus did crave human love, that he found sweet comfort in the friendships which he made, and that much of his keenest suffering was caused by failures in the love of those who ought to have been true to him as his friends. He craved affection, and even among the weak and faulty men and women about him, made many very sacred attachments from which he drew strength and comfort.

We must distinguish between Christ's love for all menand his friendship for particular individuals. He was in the world to reveal the Father, and all the divine compassion for sinners was in his heart. It was this mighty love that brought him to earth on the mission of redemption. It was this that impelled and constrained him in all his seeking of the lost. He had come to be the Savior of all who would believe and follow him. Therefore he was interested in every merest fragment or shred of life. No human soul was so debased, that he did not love it.

But besides this universal divine love revealed in the heart of Jesus, he had his personal human friendships. A philanthropist may give his whole life to the good of his fellow-men, to their uplifting, their advancement, their education; to the liberation of the enslaved; to work among and in behalf of the poor, the sick, or the fallen. All suffering humanity has its interest for him, and makes appeal to his compassion. Yet amid the world of those whom he thus loves and wishes to helpthis man will have his personal friends; and through the story of his life, will run the golden threads of sweet companionships and friendships whose benedictions and inspirations, will be secrets of strength, cheer, and help to him in all his toil in behalf of others.

Jesus gave all his rich and blessed lifeto the service of love. Power was ever going out from himto heal, to comfort, to cheer, to save. He was continually emptying out from the full fountain of his own heart, cupfuls of rich life to reinvigorate other lives in their faintness and exhaustion. One of the sources of his own renewing and replenishing, was in the friendships he had among men and women. What friends are to us in our human hunger and needthe friends of Jesus were to him. He craved companionship, and was sorely hurt when men shut their doors in his face.

There are few more pathetic words in the New Testament than that short sentence which tells of his rejection, "He came unto his ownand his own received him not." Another pathetic word is that which describes the neglect of those who ought to have been ever eager to show him hospitality: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nestsbut the Son of man has no where to lay his head." Even the beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven had warmer welcome in this worldthan he in whose heart was the most gentle love that earth ever knew.

Another word which reveals the deep hunger of the heart of Jesus for friendship and companionship, was spoken in view of the hour when even his own apostles would leave him: "Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave Me all alone." The experience of the garden of Gethsemane also shows in a wonderful way, the Lord's craving for sympathy. In his great sorrow he wished to have his best friends near him, that he might lean on them, and draw from their lovea little strength for his hour of bitter need. It was an added element in the sorrow of that nightthat he failed to get the help from human sympathy which he yearned for and expected. When he came back each time after his supplication, he found his apostles sleeping.

These are some of the glimpses which we get in the Gospel story of the longing heart of Jesus. He loved deeplyand sought to be loved. He was disappointed when he failed to find affection. He welcomed love wherever it came to himthe love of the poor, the gratitude of those whom he had helped, the trusting affection of little children. We can never know how much the friendship of the beloved disciple, was to Jesus. What a shelter and comfort the Bethany home was to him, and how his strength was renewed by its sweet fellowship! How even the smallest kindnesses were a solace to his heart! How he was comforted by the affection and the ministries of the women friends who followed him!

In the chapters of this book which follow, the attempt is made to tell the story of some of the friendships of Jesus, gathering up the threads of thought, from the Gospel pages. Sometimes the material is abundant, as in the case of Peter and John; sometimes we have only a glimpse or two in the record, albeit enough to reveal a warm and tender friendship, as in the case of the Bethany sisters, and of Andrew, and of Joseph. It may do us good to study these friendship stories. It will at least show us the human-heartedness of Jesus, and his method in blessing and saving the world.

The central fact in every true Christian life, is a personal friendship with Jesus. Men were called to follow him, to leave all and cleave to him, to believe on him, to trust him, to love him, to obey him; and the result was the transformation of their lives into his own beauty! That which alone makes one a Christian, is being a friend of Jesus.

Friendship transformsall human friendship transforms. We become like those with whom we live in close, intimate relations. Life flows into life, heart and heart are knit together, spirits blend, and the two friends become one.

We have but little to give to Christ; yet it is a comfort to know that our friendship really is precious to Him, and adds to His joypoor and meager though its best may be. But He has infinite blessings to give to us.

"I have called you friends." No other gift He gives to uscan equal in value the love and friendship of His heart.

When King Cyrus gave Artabazus, one of his courtiers, a 'gold cup', he gave Chrysanthus, his favorite, only a 'kiss'. And Artabazus said to Cyrus, "The gold cup you gave me, was not so precious as the kiss you gave Chrysanthus."

No good man's money is ever worth as much as his love. Certainly the greatest honor of this earth, greater than rank or station or wealthis the friendship of Jesus Christ.

And this honor is within the reach of everyone. "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. 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." John 15:13-15

The stories of the friendships of Jesus when He was on the earth, need cause no one to sigh, "I wish that I had lived in those days, when Jesus lived among menthat I might have been His friend too, feeling the warmth of His love, my life enriched by contact with His, and my spirit quickened by His love and grace!" The friendships of Jesus, whose stories we read in the New Testament, are only patterns of friendships into which we may now enter, if we are ready to consecrate our life to Him in faithfulness and love.

The friendship of Jesus includes all other blessings for time and for eternity! "All things are yours, and you are Christ's!"

His friendship sanctifies all pure human bondsno friendship is complete, which is not woven of a threefold cord. If Christ is our friend, all of life is made rich and beautiful to us.

Chapter 2

Jesus and His MOTHER

The first friend a child has in this worldis its mother. It comes here an utter stranger, knowing no one; but it finds love waiting for it. Instantly the little stranger has a friend, a bosom to nestle in, an arm to encircle it, a hand to minister to its helplessness. Love is born with the child. The mother presses it to her bosom, and at once her heart's tendrils entwine about it.

It is a good while before the child becomes conscious of the wondrous love that is bending over it, yet all the time the love is growing in depth and tenderness. In a thousand ways, by a thousand delicate artsthe mother seeks to awaken in her childa response to her own yearning love. At length the first gleams of answering affection appearthe child has begun to love. From that hour the holy friendship grows. The two lives become knit in one.

When God would give the world a great man, a man of rare spirit and transcendent power, a man with a lofty missionhe first prepares a woman to be his mother. Whenever in history we come upon such a man, we instinctively begin to ask about the character of her on whose bosom he nestled in infancy, and at whose knee he learned his life's first lessons. We are sure of finding here the secret of the man's greatness. When the time drew near for the incarnation of the Son of God, we may be sure that into the soul of the woman who should be his mother, who should impart her own life to him, who should teach him his first lessons, and prepare him for his holy mission, God put the loveliest and the best qualities that ever were lodged in any woman's life.

We need not accept the teaching that exalts the mother of Jesus to a place beside or above her divine Son. We need have no sympathy whatever with the Roman Catholic heresy which ascribes worship to the Virgin Mary, and teaches that the Son on his throne must be approached by mortals through his more merciful, more gentle-hearted mother. But we need not let these errors concerning Mary obscure the real blessedness of her character. We remember the angel's greeting, "Blessed are you among women." Hers surely was the highest honor ever conferred upon any woman!

We know how other men, men of genius, rarely ever have failed to give to their mothers the honor of whatever of greatness or worth they had attained. But somehow we shrink from saying that Jesus was influenced by his mother, as other good men have been; that he got from her much of the beauty and the power of his life. We are apt to fancy that his mother was not to him, what mothers ordinarily are to their children; that he did not need mothering as other children do; that by reason of his Deity, his character unfolded from within, without the aid of home teaching and training, and the other educational influences which do so much in shaping the character of children in common homes.

But there is no Scriptural ground for this feeling. The humanity of Jesus was just like our humanity. He came into the world just as feeble and as untaught as any other child that ever was born. No mother was ever more to her infant, than Mary was to Jesus. She taught him all his first lessons. She gave him his first thoughts about God, and from her lips he learned the first lispings of prayer. Jewish mothers cared very tenderly for their children. They taught them with unwearying patience, the Words of God. One of the rabbis said, "God could not be everywhere, and therefore he made mothers." This saying shows how sacred was the Jewish thought of the mother's work for her child.

Every true mother feels a sense of awe in her soul, when she bends over her own infant child; but in the case of Mary we may be sure that the awe was unusual, because of the mystery of the child's birth. In the annunciation the angel had said to her, "The holy One to be born, will be called the Son of God." Luke 1:35. Then the night of her child's birth, there was a wondrous vision of angels, and the shepherds who beheld it hastened into the town; and as they looked upon the baby in the manger, they told the wondering mother what they had seen and heard. We are told that Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart. While she could not understand what all this meant, she knew at least that hers was no common child; that in some wonderful sense he was the Son of God!

This consciousness must have given to her motherhood an unusual thoughtfulness and seriousness. How close to God she must have lived! How deep and tender her love must have been! How pure and clean her heart must have been kept! How sweet and patient she must have been as she moved about at her tasks, in order that no harsh or bitter thought or feeling might ever cast a shadow upon the holy life which had been entrusted to her for training and molding.

Only a few times is the veil lifted to give us a glimpse of mother and child. On the fortieth day he was taken to the temple, and given to God. Then it was, that another reminder of the glory of this child was given to the mother. An old man, Simeon, took the infant in his arms, and spoke of him as God's salvation. As he gave the parents his parting blessing he lifted the veil, and showed them a glimmering of the future. "This child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against." Then to the mother he said solemnly, "Yes, a sword shall pierce through your own soul also!" This was a foretelling of the sorrow which should come to the heart of Maryand which came again and again, until at last she saw her son on a cross! The shadow of the cross rested on Mary's soul all the years. Every time she rocked her baby to sleep, and laid him down softly, covering his face with kisses, there would come into her heart a pang as she remembered Simeon's words. Perhaps, too, words from the old prophets would come into her mind, "He is despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows;" "He was bruised for our iniquities," and the tears would come welling into her eyes. Every time she saw her child at play, full of gladness, all unconscious of any sorrow awaiting him, a nameless fear would steal over her as she remembered the ominous words which had fallen upon her ear, and which she could not forget.

Soon after the presentation in the temple, came the visit of the magi. Again the mother must have wondered as she heard these strangers from the East speak of her infant boy as the "King of the Jews," and saw them falling down before him in reverent worship, and then laying their offerings at his feet.

Immediately following this, came the flight into Egypt. How the mother must have pressed her child to her bosom as she fled with him to escape the cruel danger! By and by they returned, and from that time Nazareth was their home.

Only once in the thirty years, do we have a glimpse of mother and child. It was when Jesus went to his first Passover. When the time came for returning home, the child tarried behind. After a painful search the mother found him in one of the porches of the temple, sitting with the rabbis, an eager learner. There is a tone of reproach in her words, "Son, why have you thus dealt with us? Behold, your father and I have sought you sorrowing." She was sorely perplexed. All the years before this, her son had implicitly obeyed her. He had never resisted her will, never withdrawn from her guidance. Now he had done something without asking her about itas it were, had taken his life into his own hand. It was a critical point in the friendship of this mother and her child. It is a critical moment in the friendship of any mother and her childwhen the child begins to think and act for himself, to do things without the mother's guidance.

The answer of Jesus is instructive: "I must be about my Father's business." There was another besides his mother, to whom he owed allegiance. He was the Son of Godas well as the son of Mary. Parents should remember this always in dealing with their childrentheir children are more God's than theirs.

It is interesting to notice what follows that remarkable experience of mother and child in the temple. Jesus returned with his mother to the lowly Nazareth homeand he was subject to her. In recognizing his relation to God as his heavenly Fatherhe did not become any less the child of his earthly mother. He loved his mother no lessbecause he loved God more. Obedience to the Father in heavendid not lead him to reject the rule of earthly parenthood. He went back to the quiet home, and for eighteen years longer, found his Father's business, in the common round of lowly tasks which made up the daily life of such a home.

It would be intensely interesting to read the story of mother and son during those yearsbut it has not been written for us. They must have been years of wondrous beauty. Few things in this world are more beautiful than such friendships as one sometimes sees between mother and son. The boy is more the loverthan the child. The two enter into the closest companionship. A sacred and inviolable intimacy is formed between them. The boy opens all his heart to his mother, telling her everything; and she, happy woman, knows how to be a boy's mother and to keep a mother's place without ever startling or checking the shy confidences, or causing him to desire to hide anything from her. The boy whispers his inmost thoughts to his mother, and listens to her wise and gentle counsels with loving eagerness and childish faith.