'Ye are My friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.' In the former
verse, 'friends' means chiefly those whom He loved. Here it means
mainly those who love Him. They love Him because He loves them, of
course; and the two sides of the one thought cannot be parted. But
still in this verse the idea of friendship to Christ is looked at from
the human side, and He tells His disciples that they are His lovers as
well as beloved of Him, on condition of their doing whatsoever He
commands them.
He lingers, as I said, on the idea itself. As if He would meet the
doubts arising from the sense of unworthiness, and from some dim
perception of how He towers above them, and their limitations, He
reiterates, 'Wonderful as it is, you poor men, half-intelligent lovers
of Mine, _you_ are My friends, beloved of Me, and loving Me, if ye do
whatsoever I command you.'
How wonderful that stooping love of His is, which condescends to array
itself in the garments of ours! Every form of human love Christ lays
His hand upon, and claims that He Himself exercises it in a
transcendent degree. 'He that doeth the will of My Father which is in
heaven, the same is My brother and sister and mother.' That which is
even sacreder, the purest and most complete union that humanity is
capable of--that, too, He consecrates; for even it, sacred as it is, is
capable of a higher consecration, and, sweet as it is, receives a new
sweetness when we think of 'the Bride, the Lamb's wife,' and remember
the parables in which He speaks of the Marriage Supper of the Great
King, and sets forth Himself as the Husband of humanity. And passing
from that Holy of Holies out into this outer court, He lays His hand,
too, on that more common and familiar, and yet precious and sacred,
thing--the bond of friendship. The Prince makes a friend of the beggar.
Even if we do not think more loftily of Jesus Christ than do those who
regard Him simply as the perfection of humanity, is it not beautiful
and wonderful that He should look with such eyes of beaming love on
that handful of poor, ignorant fishermen, who knew Him so dimly, and
say: 'I pass by all the wise and the mighty, all the lofty and noble,
and My heart clings to you poor, insignificant people?' He stoops to
make them His friends, and there are none so low but that they may be
His.
This friendship lasts to-day. A peculiarity of Christianity is the
strong personal tie of real love and intimacy which will bind men, to
the end of time, to this Man that died nineteen hundred years ago. We
look back into the wastes of antiquity: mighty names rise there that we
reverence; there are great teachers from whom we have learned, and to
whom, after a fashion, we are grateful. But what a gulf there is
between us and the best and noblest of them! But here is a dead Man,
who to-day is the Object of passionate attachment and a love deeper
than life to millions of people, and will be till the end of time.
There is nothing in the whole history of the world in the least like
that strange bond which ties you and me to the Saviour, and the paradox
of the Apostle remains a unique fact in the experience of humanity:
'Jesus Christ, whom, having not seen, ye love.' We stretch out our
hands across the waste, silent centuries, and there, amidst the mists
of oblivion, thickening round all other figures in the past, we touch
the warm, throhbing heart of our Friend, who lives for ever, and for
ever is near us. We here, nearly two millenniums after the words fell
on the nightly air on the road to Gethsemane, have them coming direct
to our hearts. A perpetual bond unites men with Christ to-day; and for
us, as really as in that long-past Paschal night, is it true, 'Ye are
My friends.'
There are no limitations in that friendship, no misconstructions in
that heart, no alienation possible, no change to be feared. There is
absolute rest for us there. Why should I be solitary if Jesus Christ is
my Friend? Why should I fear if He walks by my side? Why should
anything be burdensome if He lays it upon me and helps me to bear it?
What is there in life that cannot be faced and borne--aye, and
conquered,--if we have Him, as we all may have Him, for the Friend and
the Home of our hearts?
But notice the condition, 'If ye do what I command you.' Note the
singular blending of friendship and command, involving on our parts the
cultivation of the two things which are not incompatible, absolute
submission and closest friendship. He commands though He is Friend;
though He commands He is Friend. The conditions that He lays down are
the same which have already occupied our attention in former sermons of
this series, and so may be touched very lightly. 'Ye are My friends if
ye do the things which I command you,' may either correspond with His
former saying, 'If a Man love Me he will keep My commandments,' or with
His later one, which immediately precedes our text, 'If ye keep My
commandments ye shall abide in My love.' For this is the relationship
between love and obedience, in regard to Jesus Christ, that the love is
the parent of the obedience, and the obedience is the guard and
guarantee of the love. They who love will obey, they who obey will
strengthen love by acting according to its dictates, and will be in a
condition to feel and realise more the warmth of the rays that stream
down upon them, and to send back more fully answering obedience from
their hearts. Not in mere emotion, not in mere verbal expression, not
in mere selfish realising of the blessings of His friendship, and not
in mere mechanical, external acts of conformity, but in the flowing
down and melting of the hard and obstinate iron will, at the warmth of
His great love, is our love made perfect. The obedience, which is the
child and the preserver of love, is something far deeper than the mere
outward conformity with externally apprehended commandments. To submit
is the expression of love, and love is deepened by submission.