John 15:9-17

What a Friend We Have in Jesus

Sixth Sunday of Easter

May 10, 2015

That classic Christian hymn from the 1800s begins as such, “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer.”  What a wonderfully comforting song this is, especially in those times when your lonely or worn out because of the sinfulness of the world.  We still have the comfort to know that Jesus is our friend, even when all our other friends might abandon us, Jesus is that friend who is always there when you need Him. 

Jesus says “You are my friends if you do what I command you.”  What a strange thing for someone to say.  Can you imagine going up to someone and telling them that they could be your friend if they do what you tell them?  Someone try that this week and tell me how successful you are.  Maybe it’s time to rethink what it means to be friends with Jesus.

Jesus says “you are my friends if you do what I command you.”  What an incredibly strange and powerful claim by Jesus, especially in light of what Paul says in Romans 5:10 “10 For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”  Each and every one of us were enemies of God Himself simply by being born and carrying on the Original Sin passed on down from generation to generation beginning with Adam. Here we are born sinful in the sight of God, enemies to Him because of our sinfulness and yet through the waters of Baptism and the abiding power of the Word, Jesus came to each and every one of us making us His friend.  John 15:16 “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide.”

The image here is that Jesus, the Lord, very God of very God, has chosen His disciples to be His friends, and gives them commands.  He chooses us to be His friend, we don’t and can’t choose Him.  All we can do now is acknowledge that Jesus has made us His friend, and so now I can be friendly toward Him.  He is the big guy, and there is a little guy.  This really makes it important when Jesus says “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his [inferiors].” If I can say it that way.  In the ancient context in which Jesus was speaking this is a big deal.  It would be like Caesar laying down his life for Pilate.  That just wouldn’t happen, even though Pilate was a friend of Caesar.  This sharpens the Gospel, the love that isn’t deserved or even expected really, but it still freely given.  The Lord, the master, is willing to lay down his life for those that He chose to be His friends, even though His friends don’t deserve it.  This isn’t the way it works, except in God’s kingdom. 

John 15:15 “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what His master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.”  Christ has chosen you to be friends, not slaves, the difference being a friend knows who the Lord is and what He is like because it is revealed to Him.  This is how Jesus can say, “you are my friends if you do what I command you.”  We don’t see the heavy hand of the Law of God, but the life giving Gospel, a Lord who has called you “friend” by His mercy and who has given His life up for you, His friend, so that you may live and that you may bear fruit, that the love He shows us we might show others by following His commands.  The greatest of which is to love the Lord with all your heart and all your mind and all your strength, and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself.

And now because Jesus has made you His friend, He can now say to you John 15:16b “so that whatever you ask the Father in My name, He may give it to you.”  It’s not just about talking to a friend.  This is not a general theology of prayer, but asking for fruit, that fruit of the Spirit that flows from a relationship with Christ of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Jesus invites you His friend, not just to pray for anything, but to ask the Father for these fruits of faith, for the power to follow to His commands and the forgiveness when we don’t, to “make me a better husband, or wife, make me a better colleague, make me a better friend, help me to bear with that unbearable person.”  And God will give it.  He wants you to love each other better because He loves you.  He wants to forgive you when you fail.  This is why you were chosen and appointed and why Jesus commanded these things, so that you will, that you can, love one another.  And He does everything He can to make that happen, even showing you His love, and mercy, and forgiveness and life through His death and resurrection.

“What a friend we have in Jesus.”  When considering our friendship with Jesus, we see how in His love He chooses us to be His friends and how His love empowers us to now follow His commands, to love Him, and to love each other.  He comes down to our level so that we may be raised to His level in eternal life.  Truly, what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!  Amen.