Jesus....A Friend

Judging by the blogs and class, Lewis' chapter on Friendship brings out a lot of issues. I guess I'll continue to stir the pot with something that's come across in my thoughts. Lewis writes that "Friendship is very rarely the image under which Scripture represents the love between God and Man." (78) My quick skims through the Bible have found this to be true, but one passage in particular rings out, and I think it's an important emphasis.

"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...Instead I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit--fruit that will last." (John 15:13-16)

I really love this passage--Jesus is stressing himself as a friend, more than a master or savior, but one willing to lay down his life for us. "I have called you friends". Not only does Jesus claim himself as "friend", but calls us "friends". "One knows nobody so well as one's 'fellow'" (71). Jesus shares that intimacy with us, that closesness that speaks beyond a Master-Servant. He wants to know our business, share in it.

I read Jensen's article on Lewis' Friendship chapter and I found myself agreeing a lot with what Jensen had to say. Lewis spends much time on the "shared interest" of friendship, but I liked Jensen's emphasis on friendship beyond the interest. "...the shared interest simply explains the genesis of a friendship...After all, Lewis says when two people 'share their vision--it is then that friendship is born'...You and I cannot become friends without sharing something right?...Perhaps the important thing is not how a friendship begins but how ongoing friendship is to be characterized." Taking in all this, I want to push towards Jesus not only being that "shared interest" but also the "how" in the "ongoing friendship".

Jesus isn't just "standing beside us", but I think His friendship with us means turning to face us. He looks within us, within our lives and desires. He takes what we need, (the most basic being redemption) and grants it freely. I think Jesus becomes a friend to us, not for the shared interest in Him, but for the sake of the relationship, for the Love of Neighbor. I wonder if Lewis saw Jesus as such a friend, or if His view of Him was so High that he didn't think it possible or proper to really "know his master's business" (John 15:15). Or maybe I'm just too much of the hymn "I've Got a Friend In Jesus"