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Last Friday we celebrated our Lord's friendship with three particular and special people - Martha, Mary and Lazarus. It was in their home at Bethany that Jesus could relax, be himself, feel the warmth of hospitable love and just accept their ministry of friendship. We all need people like Martha, Mary and Lazarus. We all need to be people like them too. The gift of friendship is one of the most precious of all gifts that we can bestow on others. It is the basis of all true human relationships and where there is friendship there will always be a real and lasting bond.
St Aelred of Rievaulx, who wrote a most important book on Spiritual Friendship says that "Friendship is like a step to raise us to the love and knowledge of God. Friendship lies close to perfection". He also said that to "live without friends is to live like a beast."
When Jesus told his disciples (and by extension, tells us) that he regarded them as his friends, he was opening up a new way of relating to God. That we can be friends with the Almighty, Immortal and Awesome God is saying something vitally important about how we should live our life as Christians. To see Jesus as our friend makes a big difference to how and why we do things to proclaim the Gospel to others. It changes our relationship with God in worship; it opens up more honest and real praying; it reveals the scriptures not simply as a story of how God deals with his people but how, from the beginning he has been conducting love-affair with us.
If I am truly a friend of Jesus then I will do anything for him and will be there for him and I will celebrate our relationship with love and support, and the gift of myself. I will be trustworthy, faithful and loyal. The reason I can be those things, and more, is because Jesus is already being that kind of friend to me - and to you. He is the person with whom we can dare to be ourselves. We do not have to be on our guard. He understands the contradictions in our nature and our struggles. He is someone with whom we can weep, laugh, be still be enthusiastic, be sad, angry, confused. He will always hold us and he will be constant. He will accept us and will never misjudge us. He will allow us to be free. And he does this because at the heart of his friendship he loves us deeply and always.
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