FROM THE PULPIT: "YOU HAVE NEVER, EVER HAD A FRIEND LIKE JESUS"

Another school year is poised to being and with it friendships will be made and renewed. My own 6-year-old son is about to embark on this journey as he begins kindergarten. As I anticipate his future friendships, I thought back over my past friendships and wondered: what is it about others that we become friends with them and what is it that causes friendships to fade and fall away? The reasons are far too numerous to enumerate now, yet common interests seem to be the most basic reason.

This led me to think further on those words of Christ in the Gospel of St. John: "Greater love has no one than this: than to lay down one's life for his friends" (15:13) and to ask: what is it about me that would make Jesus want to be my friend? The answer is actually a harsh, but honest one: absolutely nothing. There is nothing about me which recommends or commends me to God nor is there anything remarkable or redeeming or lovable about me, or any person for that matter, which would move God to favor me and become my friend.

Are you surprised at such an answer? Holy Scripture says you and I, all people are enemies of God and alienated from Him because of our wickedness, sin, and iniquity, that there is nothing about us which could merit His friendship or ingratiate us with Him: not good looks, not a nice personality, not a good heart, not good works, nothing. By nature, the Bible teaches us, we are spiritually dead, lifeless, and children of wrath, our wills and desires totally bent toward sin and evil, hence, enemies of God. Needless to say, this is not an amicable position to be in when we are before the Almighty, Holy, Just Lord of heaven and earth.

Yet, despite the fact there is nothing about us in our sin which would move God to befriend us, there is something about God which did: His love, a love which prompted Him to give up His only-begotten Son unto death on a cross to deliver you and me from our state of death, damnation, and enmity with Him, to a new standing of life, salvation, and fellowship, friendship with Him.

How remarkable is this love of God which has befriended the world, befriended you? Look at it this way: imagine with me a man laying in the gutter, a man who is covered with such mud and grime, whose clothing is in such tatters and permeated with such a stench that to draw near him would make you gag. This man's body is full of sores which ooze and are revolting to behold, he is poisoned and for all purposes dead and lifeless, lost in his catatonic state, a lump of disease and death.

By all human accounts, there is nothing about such a person which would earn or even prompt you to befriend him, to show him compassion, to reach out to him to restore him from his state of death to a new life. Let's say also, even if you were moved to help him, you also know should you try, this man would fight you, curse at you, kick you, bite you, scream at you, even kill you if given the chance. A pretty despicable fellow, right? One whom we would say is beyond befriending, perhaps even beyond loving.

Yet this is who we truly are in our sin: spiritually lifeless, dead, and an attractive lump of clay poisoned and corrupted by our iniquity and transgressions totally unappealing and unworthy of friendship with God. Thanks be to God that His befriending of us does not depend on who we are or our social status or our abilities or our works, for the Bible teaches us we are befriended by God purely out of grace, solely because of His love. For you see, dear reader, even knowing His only-begotten Son would be cursed, spit upon, whipped, beaten, and even killed, God the Father still sent His Son into this world to lay down His life to rescue you from the eternal death and damnation you and I and all people deserve because of our sin.

The Apostle Paul proclaims this great love of God when he writes: "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) We could also add, even though God knew we would still sin against Him, grumble and complain and question His good and gracious will for our lives, He nevertheless on account of His great love for you sent His only-begotten Son to redeem us and to deliver us from our sentence of death and damnation that we, through faith in Him, might have life, eternal life with Him in heaven.

The great love of Jesus moved Him to willingly lay down His life for you while you were still His enemy in sin. Jesus did so eagerly and without hesitation so that by believing on Him you may not perish on account of your sin but have everlasting life. Through faith in Jesus Christ, you who were once enemies of God are called friends of God. Yes, even a son. Proverbs 18:24 states: "There is a friend who sticks closer than a brother." That friend is none other than Jesus Christ, the Son of God, Who became Man to be uplifted on the cross of Calvary to make you sons of the Most High, His people, His friends, those He is not ashamed to call His brothers. Truly, greater love has no one than this: than to lay down His life for His friends. How remarkable! He considered us His friends even then, some 2,000 years ago, and we could even say in eternity, for Jesus knew He would lay down His life and take it up again for the life of the world, for your life.

Some years back. Disney released a movie called "Aladdin." In this movie, a "street rat" comes across a lamp and the genie of the lamp declares: You ain't never, ever had a friend like me. Throughout the movie this is shown to be true. The genie transforms Aladdin the "street rat" into Aladdin the prince. On one occasion, the genie even saves Aladdin from certain death. Indeed throughout the movie the genie proved to be an irreplaceable friend. Although this is pretend, this is not: you have never, ever had a friend like Jesus dear reader. For when we were enemies, He in His love befriended us and saved us from our sins by suffering, by dying, and by rising again from the dead. In His love He transforms us by the working of His Spirit through the Gospel from spiritual street rats once enslaved to sin into sons, co-heirs of His eternal kingdom.

In Jesus you have a friend Whose love moved Him to lay down His life to win for you eternal life. In Jesus you have a friend Who is there for you through thick and through thin, Who will never betray you, desert you, or forsake you. Yes, you have never, ever had a friend like Jesus for in Him, by believing in Him as your Crucified and Risen Savior, you have a friend for life, for this life and the life to come.

Rev. D. Lee Cullen Jr. graduated from Concordia Theological Seminary in November 1992 and has been serving Christ Ev. Lutheran Church in Gordonville since January 1993.