Listen to Sermon
Pastor Tom Johnson, May 6, 2018
You’ll remember that it was an insult from religious leaders: “Jesus is friend of sinners,” they said. Like a lot of insults toward people in history, this one becomes a badge of honor. “I am a friend of sinners.” “You are my friends,” Jesus says. There is so much talk of love in the Scriptures—especially John’s Gospel. “For God so loved the world he sent his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” “No one has greater love than this than to lay one’s life down for one’s friends.” The great commandment is to “Love God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength.” The second is like it, “To love your neighbor as yourself—to love one another as Christ loved us.” It almost comes as a shock to us to hear that God not only loves us but that he likes us. I believe Jesus wants to have this effect on us with his words. So much talk of love, love, love—that we run the risk of making it into an abstraction. No, Jesus says, “I do love you. I even like you.” That’s God’s obligation to fulfill the law. He must love us to fulfill the Law. But, we may think, God does not have to like us. Thanks be to God, he does!
That's Jesus’ challenge for us. Do not just love others in word. Be friends to them from the heart and in action. Do not let your love be a theological abstraction but a joyful and authentic expression of friendship. Jesus reminds us that the greatest expression of love is to lay one’s life down for our friends. True friendship is sacrificial. It is giving of one’s self for the benefit of another. When we are true friends, we are not fixated on ourselves. The proverb says, “A person of many companions may come to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother” (18:24). And another proverb says, “A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity” (17:17). Or as the cliché goes, “You cannot choose family but you can choose your friends.” Jesus says, “You did not choose me. I chose you.” Love seems more like an obligation—especially since we are born into a particular family. But genuine friendship is completely voluntary. “I have to love you,” we might think, “but I do not need to like you.” “Salute the uniform but not the person,” we might advise. Jesus says, “No, then your love is phony. It is an ivory tower love. It is a heavenly love but of no earthly good.”
Christ-like friendship does not begin by our being drawn to a person because of their magnetic personality and the perks we receive from the relationship. Christ-like friendship begins by being a friend to that person first. Authentic friendship says, “I chose you. I took the risk of being a friend to you without any expectation of anything return.” I accept you as you are. Just as Jesus befriended us when we did nothing to earn or deserve such authentic love. Sometimes we do not even recognize such reckless love being extended to us. We may take it for granted. We may think we deserve such kindness and consideration when in reality a person is reaching out to us to win our friendship. True friendship is rare because it is a risky business. We may be rejected. We may get burned. We may get crucified. Jesus says, “Nevertheless, be a Christ-like friend to others.” As another proverb says, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and a winner of souls is wise” (11:30).
Jesus’ powerful reminder to us today is that you and I are worth the risk. Jesus put himself out there. He showed interest in those around him. No one was invisible to him. He cared about the struggles, pain, and death all around him. And yet, “He was despised and rejected by people, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…and we did not esteem him” (Isa 53:3). All the disciples were fair-weather friends to Jesus their master. They all ran away when he was arrested. He was mocked. His reputation was attacked. He was crucified. And yet he kept on extending the hand of friendship out to us. Our faithful Friend said, “Father forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” even as he died for us. This is what Jesus says he wants for you and me: For our joy to be full and for our friendships to be authentic. Just as it was for our friend Jesus “who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Heb 12:2).
Dear Christians, one and all, rejoice
With exultation springing,
And with united heart and voice
And holy rapture singing,
Proclaim the wonders God has done,
How His right arm the vict’ry won.
What price our ransom cost Him!
To me He said: “Stay close to Me,
I am your rock and castle.
Your ransom I Myself will be;
For you I strive and wrestle.
For I am yours, and you are Mine,
And where I am you may remain;
The foe shall not divide us.”
“At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sin” (LSB 833, vv. 7 & 8)
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