Love And Friendship
Sermon
THE VICTORY OF FAITH
New Testament Sermons For Lent And Easter
A boy was asked about his family, when he enrolled for church school. The teacher responded with a quizzical, "Oh," after the boy revealed that he had no brothers or sisters. To which the youngster piped, "But I've got friends!"
It is so good to have friends. But, what is a friend? Satirist Ambrose Bierce defines friendship as a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul. This is a rather negative portrayal compared to an Arabian explanation that characterizes a friend as "one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take it and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."
In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about love and friendship in the same breath. He calls his disciples friends, immediately after describing the greatest love as one person willingly laying down his or her life for a friend. True friendship is most clearly seen in this kind of love. It is a friendship that essentially gives of itself to another.
To say that an individual is my friend is to recognize something special that an individual has done for you. It is not that you did something nice for that person which qualifies that one as your friend. Rather, it is how the individual treats you that determines one's friendship. Friendship is essentially founded upon what someone else does for you. The same is true with love.
In his pastoral letter, John expresses this so well. "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins."
When Jesus discusses friendship with his disciples in the Gospel of John, he speaks about it in terms of laying down his life, offering up his life. The sign of a true friend is the willingness to give up one's life for the sake of the one befriended. Against the Old Testament background of "sacrifice for sin," Jesus is willing to accept the responsibility to become the sacrifice for sin for all, so that God's love can be extended to all. Jesus becomes our friend by paying the price for our sin. He does for us that which the law requires, namely the shedding of our blood. Capital punishment is the verdict rendered by God for our rebellion. We are to pay the price! Except that our friend, Jesus, intervenes and sacrifices himself on our behalf.
What a friend we have in Jesus, as the familiar hymn reminds us. Jesus chose us to befriend. We did not choose him to be our friend. As he himself said, "You did not choose me but I chose you." The nature of friendship is that it chooses who shall benefit from the relationship. Friendship can be given as well as taken away, unlike the givenness of kinship.
The following is a true story that occurred during the internment of Christian missionaries in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines during World War II. It was the rule of the camp that anyone caught trying to escape would be put to death. One day a little-noticed, "unimportant" prisoner broke out of the compound for freedom, but was caught. He was a small, dirty, hairy individual, whose life seemed to have no great significance to the Japanese or to the imprisoned Americans. The guards placed the man in the middle of the yard and assembled all the other prisoners to watch his execution.
It was also a rule of the camp that any prisoner breaking rank during assembly would be executed at once. The small, dirty, hairy man was staked to the ground. The guards began to whip him, the intention being to whip him to death. Suddenly, the doctor -- of all people, the doctor! -- broke rank. The doctor was the one camp prisoner who was indispensable. It was his knowledge and care that helped keep the other prisoners alive in the face of malnutrition, dysentery, malaria, and fatigue. But, the doctor broke rank, aware of the consequences, and threw himself over the body of that man, staked out for death. He put his own precious body between the whip and the small, dirty, hairy back of the doomed man. The guards were so impressed with such an act of self-sacrificing bravery that they let both men live.
The doctor proved to be more than a fair-weather friend to the man.
Friendship is made manifest when the friend acts in some special way for you. Love is made manifest when the friend acts in some special way for you.
"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." Jesus said this; Jesus did this!
The Law of God condemns us as sinners and sentences us to death. Jesus puts himself between the whip of the Law and our backs. He takes the blows himself. The prophet Isaiah pictures it this way:
He was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
Jesus is no fair-weather friend! He rides out the storm with us and for us, not just to the edge of doom, but even over the edge of doom.
A contemporary hymn by James S. Tallman puts it this way:
A friend is a friend who will come to his friends,
Whenever in trouble he sees us.
A friend is a friend who will give to his friends,
From every worry relieves us.
Many will come and claim to be friends,
But we can be sure that it's true in the end
That a friend is a friend who will die for his friends.
We have a friend in Jesus!1
Jesus, who hung on the scaffold of judgment for us, who laid down his life for us, is the same Jesus who was raised from the dead by the power of God. He lives today! He calls us to follow him as friends. He has befriended us and invites us to be friends to one another in his name. In other words, what Jesus gives to us, he calls out of us to give in turn to one another, as the following story illustrates.
Little did Arleen know how their life would be challenged and changed by the knock on the door that early Friday morning. The officers had a warrant for Edgar. Apparently he had been rotating company funds illegally, borrowing money from certain policies to make investments for clients. If he had more time, he would have been able to put all the monies back in place, so that nobody would have lost anything. But, an accountant discovered the irregularities and blew the whistle. Edgar had no defense for his guilt. For the next five years he resided at the state penitentiary. He was relieved of his responsibilities at work. His reputation was lost. His family was devastated. Arleen had a big decision. Hurt and angered by the turn of events, she could have left her husband of 27 years. He had failed her trust in him, after all.
"Are you going to leave me?" Edgar asked plaintively from behind the glass window that separated them in the visitors' room.
"What do you expect me to do?" she responded with anger.
"I've really blown it, Arleen. I am so sorry. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong at the time. But now, I see how many lives I've messed up. I am so sorry." Edgar could hardly look at her as he spoke.
"You have hurt the family, Edgar," Arleen said sternly. "I would like to walk away from here and not look back ƒ and not remember any of this ƒ But I can't." Arleen spoke in a softer tone now.
"What are you saying, Arleen?" Edgar asked with an edge of hope in his voice.
"I'm saying that if my marriage vows mean anything to me, I will stay with you through this. If my faith means anything to me, I will stay with you through this. If God's promises are true, God will stay with us through this. That's what I'm saying, Edgar. It's not easy to say right now, but I know it is the right thing to say -- to believe." Arleen put her hand against the window for a moment and then removed it to wipe away her tears.
"Thank you, Arleen. I know this is not easy for you. I've told you before how much your affection has meant to me over the years, but it is only now that I am beginning to see the depth of your heart. I don't deserve you." Edgar was choking back the lump of grief gathering in his throat.
"No, perhaps you don't. But I'm here and I won't leave you, Edgar." Her hand returned to the glass. Edgar reached for it with his. Five years of glass now separated them. Pressing hard against its smooth surface, Edgar could already feel her gentle hand penetrate the barrier, sifting the grain and the chaff of his life, keeping what is worth keeping and giving him hope.
Arleen's realistic and dedicated love for Edgar embody Shakespeare's words when he writes:
ƒ Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration findsƒ
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
ƒ Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
God's love for us did not alter when sin was found in our hearts. God remained steadfast to the covenant of love that infused God's creation from the beginning. This is the kind of love we are to emulate in our relations with one another. Arleen struggled well with this challenge. As John writes, "Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another."
In the power of the resurrection life, Christians are inspired to model every relationship after the love and friendship offered for us, given to us, and worked through us by the Lord Jesus Christ, our loving friend in deed and indeed. Amen.
____________
1. Reprinted from "Church Songs #1: A Friend Is A Friend," music and lyrics by James S. Tallman, copyright © 1995 James S. Tallman. Used by permission of James S. Tallman.
It is so good to have friends. But, what is a friend? Satirist Ambrose Bierce defines friendship as a ship big enough to carry two in fair weather, but only one in foul. This is a rather negative portrayal compared to an Arabian explanation that characterizes a friend as "one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take it and sift it, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."
In the Gospel of John, Jesus talks about love and friendship in the same breath. He calls his disciples friends, immediately after describing the greatest love as one person willingly laying down his or her life for a friend. True friendship is most clearly seen in this kind of love. It is a friendship that essentially gives of itself to another.
To say that an individual is my friend is to recognize something special that an individual has done for you. It is not that you did something nice for that person which qualifies that one as your friend. Rather, it is how the individual treats you that determines one's friendship. Friendship is essentially founded upon what someone else does for you. The same is true with love.
In his pastoral letter, John expresses this so well. "God's love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins."
When Jesus discusses friendship with his disciples in the Gospel of John, he speaks about it in terms of laying down his life, offering up his life. The sign of a true friend is the willingness to give up one's life for the sake of the one befriended. Against the Old Testament background of "sacrifice for sin," Jesus is willing to accept the responsibility to become the sacrifice for sin for all, so that God's love can be extended to all. Jesus becomes our friend by paying the price for our sin. He does for us that which the law requires, namely the shedding of our blood. Capital punishment is the verdict rendered by God for our rebellion. We are to pay the price! Except that our friend, Jesus, intervenes and sacrifices himself on our behalf.
What a friend we have in Jesus, as the familiar hymn reminds us. Jesus chose us to befriend. We did not choose him to be our friend. As he himself said, "You did not choose me but I chose you." The nature of friendship is that it chooses who shall benefit from the relationship. Friendship can be given as well as taken away, unlike the givenness of kinship.
The following is a true story that occurred during the internment of Christian missionaries in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines during World War II. It was the rule of the camp that anyone caught trying to escape would be put to death. One day a little-noticed, "unimportant" prisoner broke out of the compound for freedom, but was caught. He was a small, dirty, hairy individual, whose life seemed to have no great significance to the Japanese or to the imprisoned Americans. The guards placed the man in the middle of the yard and assembled all the other prisoners to watch his execution.
It was also a rule of the camp that any prisoner breaking rank during assembly would be executed at once. The small, dirty, hairy man was staked to the ground. The guards began to whip him, the intention being to whip him to death. Suddenly, the doctor -- of all people, the doctor! -- broke rank. The doctor was the one camp prisoner who was indispensable. It was his knowledge and care that helped keep the other prisoners alive in the face of malnutrition, dysentery, malaria, and fatigue. But, the doctor broke rank, aware of the consequences, and threw himself over the body of that man, staked out for death. He put his own precious body between the whip and the small, dirty, hairy back of the doomed man. The guards were so impressed with such an act of self-sacrificing bravery that they let both men live.
The doctor proved to be more than a fair-weather friend to the man.
Friendship is made manifest when the friend acts in some special way for you. Love is made manifest when the friend acts in some special way for you.
"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." Jesus said this; Jesus did this!
The Law of God condemns us as sinners and sentences us to death. Jesus puts himself between the whip of the Law and our backs. He takes the blows himself. The prophet Isaiah pictures it this way:
He was wounded for our transgressions,
crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole,
and by his bruises we are healed.
Jesus is no fair-weather friend! He rides out the storm with us and for us, not just to the edge of doom, but even over the edge of doom.
A contemporary hymn by James S. Tallman puts it this way:
A friend is a friend who will come to his friends,
Whenever in trouble he sees us.
A friend is a friend who will give to his friends,
From every worry relieves us.
Many will come and claim to be friends,
But we can be sure that it's true in the end
That a friend is a friend who will die for his friends.
We have a friend in Jesus!1
Jesus, who hung on the scaffold of judgment for us, who laid down his life for us, is the same Jesus who was raised from the dead by the power of God. He lives today! He calls us to follow him as friends. He has befriended us and invites us to be friends to one another in his name. In other words, what Jesus gives to us, he calls out of us to give in turn to one another, as the following story illustrates.
Little did Arleen know how their life would be challenged and changed by the knock on the door that early Friday morning. The officers had a warrant for Edgar. Apparently he had been rotating company funds illegally, borrowing money from certain policies to make investments for clients. If he had more time, he would have been able to put all the monies back in place, so that nobody would have lost anything. But, an accountant discovered the irregularities and blew the whistle. Edgar had no defense for his guilt. For the next five years he resided at the state penitentiary. He was relieved of his responsibilities at work. His reputation was lost. His family was devastated. Arleen had a big decision. Hurt and angered by the turn of events, she could have left her husband of 27 years. He had failed her trust in him, after all.
"Are you going to leave me?" Edgar asked plaintively from behind the glass window that separated them in the visitors' room.
"What do you expect me to do?" she responded with anger.
"I've really blown it, Arleen. I am so sorry. I didn't think I was doing anything wrong at the time. But now, I see how many lives I've messed up. I am so sorry." Edgar could hardly look at her as he spoke.
"You have hurt the family, Edgar," Arleen said sternly. "I would like to walk away from here and not look back ƒ and not remember any of this ƒ But I can't." Arleen spoke in a softer tone now.
"What are you saying, Arleen?" Edgar asked with an edge of hope in his voice.
"I'm saying that if my marriage vows mean anything to me, I will stay with you through this. If my faith means anything to me, I will stay with you through this. If God's promises are true, God will stay with us through this. That's what I'm saying, Edgar. It's not easy to say right now, but I know it is the right thing to say -- to believe." Arleen put her hand against the window for a moment and then removed it to wipe away her tears.
"Thank you, Arleen. I know this is not easy for you. I've told you before how much your affection has meant to me over the years, but it is only now that I am beginning to see the depth of your heart. I don't deserve you." Edgar was choking back the lump of grief gathering in his throat.
"No, perhaps you don't. But I'm here and I won't leave you, Edgar." Her hand returned to the glass. Edgar reached for it with his. Five years of glass now separated them. Pressing hard against its smooth surface, Edgar could already feel her gentle hand penetrate the barrier, sifting the grain and the chaff of his life, keeping what is worth keeping and giving him hope.
Arleen's realistic and dedicated love for Edgar embody Shakespeare's words when he writes:
ƒ Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration findsƒ
O, no! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
ƒ Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
God's love for us did not alter when sin was found in our hearts. God remained steadfast to the covenant of love that infused God's creation from the beginning. This is the kind of love we are to emulate in our relations with one another. Arleen struggled well with this challenge. As John writes, "Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another."
In the power of the resurrection life, Christians are inspired to model every relationship after the love and friendship offered for us, given to us, and worked through us by the Lord Jesus Christ, our loving friend in deed and indeed. Amen.
____________
1. Reprinted from "Church Songs #1: A Friend Is A Friend," music and lyrics by James S. Tallman, copyright © 1995 James S. Tallman. Used by permission of James S. Tallman.
