Produced by Al Haines
Personal Friendships
of Jesus
BY
J. R. MILLER, D. D.
AUTHOR OF "SILENT TIMES," "MAKING THE MOST OF LIFE,"
"THINGS TO LIVE FOR," "BLESSING OF CHEERFULNESS," ETC.
One friend in that path shall be,
To secure my steps from wrong;
One to count night day for me,
Patient through the watches long,
Serving most with none to see.
BROWNING.
New York
THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO.
PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT, 1897,
BY THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY.
EIGHTH THOUSAND
PREFACE.
George MacDonald said in an address, "The longer I live, the more I am
assured that the business of life is to understand the Lord Christ."
If this be true, whatever sheds even a little light on the character or
life of Christ is worth while.
Nothing reveals a man's heart better than his friendships. The kind of
friend he is, tells the kind of man he is. The personal friendships of
Jesus reveal many tender and beautiful things in his character. They
show us also what is possible for us in divine friendship; for the
heart of Jesus is the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever.
These chapters are only suggestive, not exhaustive. If they make the
way into close personal friendship with Jesus any plainer for those who
hunger for such blessed intimacy, that will be reward enough.
J. R. M.
PHILADELPHIA.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER
I. THE HUMANHEARTEDNESS OF JESUS
II. JESUS AND HIS MOTHER
III. JESUS AND HIS FORERUNNER
IV. JESUS' CONDITIONS OF FRIENDSHIP
V. JESUS CHOOSING HIS FRIENDS
VI. JESUS AND THE BELOVED DISCIPLE
VII. JESUS AND PETER
VIII. JESUS AND THOMAS
IX. JESUS' UNREQUITED FRIENDSHIPS
X. JESUS AND THE BETHANY SISTERS
XI. JESUS COMFORTING HIS FRIENDS
XII. JESUS AND HIS SECRET FRIENDS
XIII. JESUS' FAREWELL TO HIS FRIENDS
XIV. JESUS' FRIENDSHIPS AFTER HE AROSE
XV. JESUS AS A FRIEND
All I could never be,
All men ignored in me,
This I was worth to God.
BROWNING.
But lead me, Man divine,
Where'er Thou will'st, only that I may find
At the long journey's end Thy image there,
And grow more like to it. For art not Thou
The human shadow of the infinite Love
That made and fills the endless universe?
The very Word of Him, the unseen, unknown,
Eternal Good that rules the summer flower
And all the worlds that people starry space.
RICHARD WATSON GILDER.
THE FRIENDSHIPS OF JESUS.
CHAPTER I.
THE HUMANHEARTEDNESS OF JESUS.
O God, O kinsman loved, but not enough,
O man with eyes majestic after death,
Whose feet have toiled along our pathways rough,
Whose lips drawn human breath;
By that one likeness which is ours and thine,
By that one nature which doth hold us kin,
By that high heaven where sinless thou dost shine,
To draw us sinners in;
By thy last silence in the judgment hall,
By long foreknowledge of the deadly tree,
By darkness, by the wormwood and the gall,
I pray thee visit me.
JEAN INGELOW.
There is a natural tendency to think of Jesus as different from other
men in the human element of his personality. Our adoration of him as
our divine Lord makes it seem almost sacrilege to place his humanity in
the ordinary rank with that of other men. It seems to us that life
could not have meant the same to him that it means to us. It is
difficult for us to conceive of him as learning in childhood as other
children have to learn. We find ourselves fancying that he must always
have known how to read and write and speak. We think of the
experiences of his youth and young manhood as altogether unlike those
of any other boy or young man in the village where he grew up. This
same feeling leads us to think of his temptation as so different from
what temptation is to other men as to be really no temptation at all.
So we are apt to think of all the human life of Jesus as being in some
way lifted up out of the rank of ordinary experiences. We do not
conceive of him as having the same struggles that we have in meeting
trial, in enduring injury and wrong, in learning obedience, patience,
meekness, submission, trust, and cheerfulness. We conceive of his
friendships as somehow different from other men's. We feel that in
some mysterious way his human life was supported and sustained by the
deity that dwelt in him, and that he was exempt from all ordinary
limiting conditions of humanity.
There is no doubt that with many people this feeling of reverence has
been in the way of the truest understanding of Jesus, and ofttimes
those who have clung most devoutly to a belief in his deity have missed
much of the comfort which comes from a proper comprehension of his
humanity.
Yet the story of Jesus as told in the Gospels furnishes no ground for
any confusion on the subject of his human life. It represents him as
subject to all ordinary human conditions excepting sin. He began life
as every infant begins, in feebleness and ignorance; and there is no
hint of any precocious development. He learned as every child must
learn. The lessons were not gotten easily or without diligent study.
He played as other boys did, and with them. The more we think of the
youth of Jesus as in no marked way unlike that of those among whom he
lived, the truer will our thought of him be.
Millais the great artist, when he was a young man, painted an unusual
picture of Jesus. He represented him as a little boy in the home at
Nazareth. He has cut his finger on some carpenter's tool, and comes to
his mother to have it bound up. The picture is really one of the
truest of all the many pictures of Jesus, because it depicts just such
a scene as ofttimes may have been witnessed in his youth. Evidently
there was nothing in his life in Nazareth that drew the attention of
his companions and neighbors to him in any striking way. We know that
he wrought no miracles until after he had entered upon his public
ministry. We can think of him as living a life of unselfishness and
kindness. There was never any sin or fault in him; he always kept the
law of God perfectly. But his perfection was not something startling.
There was no halo about his head, no transfiguration, that awed men.
We are told that he grew in favor with men as well as with God. His
religion made his life beautiful and winning, but always so simple and
natural that it drew no unusual attention to itself. It was richly and
ideally human.
So it was unto the end. Through the years of his public ministry, when
his words and works burned with divine revealing, he continued to live
an altogether natural human life. He ate and drank; he grew weary and
faint; he was tempted in all points like as we are, and suffered, being
tempted. He learned obedience by the things that he endured. He
hungered and thirsted, never ministering with his divine power to any
of his own needs. "In all things it behooved him to be made like unto
his brethren."
In nothing else is this truth more clearly shown than in the
humanheartedness which was so striking a feature of the life of Jesus
among men. When we think of him as the Son of God, the question
arises, Did he really care for personal friendships with men and women
of the human family? In the home from which he came he had dwelt from
all eternity in the bosom of the Father, and had enjoyed the
companionship of the highest angels. What could he find in this world
of imperfect, sinful beings to meet the cravings of his heart for
fellowship? Whom could he find among earth's sinful creatures worthy
of his friendship, or capable of being in any real sense his personal
friend? What satisfaction could his heart find in this world's deepest
and holiest love? What light can a dim candle give to the sun? Does
the great ocean need the little dewdrop that hides in the bosom of the
rose? What blessing or inspiration of love can any poor, marred,
stained life give to the soul of the Christ?
Yet the Gospels abound with evidences that Jesus did crave human love,
that he found sweet comfort in the friendships which he made, and that
much of his keenest suffering was caused by failures in the love of
those who ought to have been true to him as his friends. He craved
affection, and even among the weak and faulty men and women about him
made many very sacred attachments from which he drew strength and
comfort.
We must distinguish between Christ's love for all men and his
friendship for particular individuals. He was in the world to reveal
the Father, and all the divine compassion for sinners was in his heart.
It was this mighty love that brought him to earth on the mission of
redemption. It was this that impelled and constrained him in all his
seeking of the lost. He had come to be the Saviour of all who would
believe and follow him. Therefore he was interested in every merest
fragment or shred of life. No human soul was so debased that he did
not love it.
But besides this universal divine love revealed in the heart of Jesus,
he had his personal human friendships. A philanthropist may give his
whole life to the good of his fellow-men, to their uplifting, their
advancement, their education; to the liberation of the enslaved; to
work among and in behalf of the poor, the sick, or the fallen. All
suffering humanity has its interest for him, and makes appeal to his
compassion. Yet amid the world of those whom he thus loves and wishes
to help, this man will have his personal friends; and through the story
of his life will run the golden threads of sweet companionships and
friendships whose benedictions and inspirations will be secrets of
strength, cheer, and help to him in all his toil in behalf of others.
Jesus gave all his rich and blessed life to the service of love. Power
was ever going out from him to heal, to comfort, to cheer, to save. He
was continually emptying out from the full fountain of his own heart
cupfuls of rich life to reinvigorate other lives in their faintness and
exhaustion. One of the sources of his own renewing and replenishing
was in the friendships he had among men and women. What friends are to
us in our human hunger and need, the friends of Jesus were to him. He
craved companionship, and was sorely hurt when men shut their doors in
his face.
There are few more pathetic words in the New Testament than that short
sentence which tells of his rejection, "He came unto his own, and his
own received him not." Another pathetic word is that which describes
the neglect of those who ought to have been ever eager to show him
hospitality: "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have
nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." Even the
beasts of the field and the birds of the heaven had warmer welcome in
this world than he in whose heart was the most gentle love that earth
ever knew.
Another word which reveals the deep hunger of the heart of Jesus for
friendship and companionship was spoken in view of the hour when even
his own apostles would leave him: "Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now
come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave
me alone." The experience of the garden of Gethsemane also shows in a
wonderful way the Lord's craving for sympathy. In his great sorrow he
wished to have his best friends near him, that he might lean on them,
and draw from their love a little strength for his hour of bitter need.
It was an added element in the sorrow of that night that he failed to
get the help from human sympathy which he yearned for and expected.
When he came back each time after his supplication, he found his
apostles sleeping.
These are some of the glimpses which we get in the Gospel story of the
longing heart of Jesus. He loved deeply, and sought to be loved. He
was disappointed when he failed to find affection. He welcomed love
wherever it came to him,--the love of the poor, the gratitude of those
whom he had helped, the trusting affection of little children. We can
never know how much the friendship of the beloved disciple was to
Jesus. What a shelter and comfort the Bethany home was to him, and how
his strength was renewed by its sweet fellowship! How even the
smallest kindnesses were a solace to his heart! How he was comforted
by the affection and the ministries of the women-friends who followed
him!
In the chapters of this book which follow, the attempt is made to tell
the story of some of the friendships of Jesus, gathering up the threads
from the Gospel pages. Sometimes the material is abundant, as in the
case of Peter and John; sometimes we have only a glimpse or two in the
record, albeit enough to reveal a warm and tender friendship, as in the
case of the Bethany sisters, and of Andrew, and of Joseph. It may do
us good to study these friendship stories. It will at least show us
the humanheartedness of Jesus, and his method in blessing and saving
the world. The central fact in every true Christian life is a personal
friendship with Jesus. Men were called to follow him, to leave all and
cleave to him, to believe on him, to trust him, to love him, to obey
him; and the result was the transformation of their lives into his own
beauty. That which alone makes one a Christian is being a friend of
Jesus. Friendship transforms--all human friendship transforms. We
become like those with whom we live in close, intimate relations. Life
flows into life, heart and heart are knit together, spirits blend, and
the two friends become one.
We have but little to give to Christ; yet it is a comfort to know that
our friendship really is precious to him, and adds to his joy, poor and
meagre though its best may be--but he has infinite blessings to give to
us. "I call you friends." No other gift he gives to us can equal in
value the love and friendship of his heart. When Cyrus gave Artabazus,
one of his courtiers, a gold cup, he gave Chrysanthus, his favorite,
only a kiss. And Artabazus said to Cyrus, "The cup you gave me was not
so good gold as the kiss you gave Chrysanthus." No good man's money is
ever worth so much as his love. Certainly the greatest honor of this
earth, greater than rank or station or wealth, is the friendship of
Jesus Christ. And this honor is within the reach of every one.
"Henceforth I call you not servants ... I have called you friends."
"Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you."
The stories of the friendships of Jesus when he was on the earth need
cause no one to sigh, "I wish that I had lived in those days, when
Jesus lived among men, that I might have been his friend too, feeling
the warmth of his love, my life enriched by contact with his, and my
spirit quickened by his love and grace!" The friendships of Jesus,
whose stories we read in the New Testament, are only patterns of
friendships into which we may enter, if we are ready to accept what he
offers, and to consecrate our life to faithfulness and love.
The friendship of Jesus includes all other blessings for time and for
eternity. "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's." His friendship
sanctifies all pure human bonds--no friendship is complete which is not
woven of a threefold cord. If Christ is our friend, all life is made
rich and beautiful to us. The past, with all of sacred loss it holds,
lives before us in him. The future is a garden-spot in which all
life's sweet hopes, that seem to have perished on the earth, will be
found growing for us.
"Fields of the past to thee shall be no more
The burialground of friendships once in bloom,
But the seed-plots of a harvest on before,
And prophecies of life with larger room
For things that are behind.
Live thou in Christ, and thy dead past shall be
Alive forever with eternal day;
And planted on his bosom thou shall see
The flowers revived that withered on the way
Amid the things behind."