Church at Mt. Carmel
John 15:12-17
Remember when we were younger and the value of the word “friend” was measured more by quantity and not quality? When popularity was determined by how many ‘friends’ you invited to your birthday party? And then late on in life, we began to discover the meaning of true friendship. We found and we became a true friend, someone to trust completely, someone to confide in and rely on, someone we could be ourselves with, warts and all!
In today’s Gospel Jesus tells the disciples “I call you friends for so indeed you are”. Friends!! Not simply followers or disciples! Not subjects or worshippers! Not even mere companions! Friends! It’s a good opportunity for us today to reflect on what it means to be a friend, what it means to have a best friend. Friendship, real friendship, is a relationship built on love and not convenience, based on the depth of that love and not frequency of contact.
At its core, a real friend is someone who accepts you as you are, not as they want you to be. A real friend is someone who has seen you at your worst and still stands beside you. A real friend loves you, warts and all. A real friend sees the best in you even when you refuse to see it yourself.
Jesus calls His disciples friends, He has seen them at their worst; they doubt Him, they deny Him, they abandon Him. And He still calls them friends. He still loves them enough to lay down His life for them. And not just for the disciples but for each of us. He has seen all of us at our worst, even when we doubted, even when we turned our back on Him. And yet He still loves us, still walks with us, still recognizes the good in us.
Ginger, my wife, my best friend, always has this one word to remind me of our relationship – STUCK!! We are stuck to each other, stuck with each other, in every good sense imaginable. It means, no matter what, I am right here by your side, we are stuck together; we face whatever life throws at us TOGETHER! And so Jesus reminds us today – you’ve got a friend in Me! And I’m not going anywhere! STUCK!