Jesus = Your Homeboy?

...Your my Brother,Your my Friend
Your my Beginning,Your my End...

I have these visions of singing this campy/VBS-y song, partnered with someone else, pointing our finger's into each other's palms...then pointing to our heads and then to our bums. I'll spare you the rest of the lyrics and motions (some of you may know them), but something rubs me the wrong way when we call Jesus our friend. 

I get it. 

I mean, Jesus (in John 15) is telling the disciples that He will now be addressing them as friends. They have moved from servant to friend, that have been chosen. No one has a greater love than this, that He would lay down His life for His friends. Most would say, that in Christ's sacrifice, that this is now applicable to all of us. We are all His friend...with the contingency of obedience, of course--'You are my friends if you do what I command you'.  Interesting friendship, huh? 

I'm not going to try and argue that Jesus isn't our 'friend'...

But, I don't necessarily think He's our friend in the way that we, in our modern-day world, think of friend. I don't really think He's just our homeboy, or our buddy. I don't really think He's our facebook friend. I don't really think we should necessarily even try to teach about Jesus by using metaphors of friendship. How often have you heard, or said, that Jesus is your best friend? 

Is He? 

What does that even mean for you when you say it? 

I think when we solely talk about Jesus in relation to friendship, that we miss so much of who He is. I think it's almost limiting. But, I think we use it because it's more comfortable for us. It's maybe easier to love a God who is our friend instead of our master. 

Perhaps when we talk about Jesus in terms of friendship, it helps foster an environment of guilt. I can't even recall the number of times that I felt, because I wasn't as excited to spend time with Jesus as I was to spend time with friends, that I was a terrible Christian. That I didn't talk to Him as much as I did my other friends, that I didn't do as much for Him, that I didn't want to meet up with Him at church.... you name it. Compare your relationship to Jesus with some of your closest friends and it's the easiest avenue to take toward guilt-city. 

Jesus is probably not my best friend....at least not in the way we typically define best friends.

But, I'm not sure if He's supposed to be. 

Is friendship today anywhere close to what it was like for Jesus and the disciples? I highly doubt it. This role we've now placed Jesus into, what exactly does it mean for us? 

Does it mean He's our confidant? Does it mean that He's always there?

If we're looking at the dictionary, 'friend' means: 

• a person whom one knows and with whom one has a mutual bond of affection
• a person who acts as a supporter of a cause, organization or country by giving financial or other help
• a person who is not an enemy or who is on the same side
• often as a polite form of address 

What do you mean when you call Jesus your friend? 

Have we reduced Jesus to t-shirts and facebook relationships and tweets? Have we turned our intimate relationship with Him into something cheap and cliche? 

He laid down His life for you. 

Blood was shed. For you. 

He is Savior. He is Healer. He is Father. He is Abba. He is Master. He is King of Kings. He is Holy. He is Love. He is Friend. It's all-encompassing. We can't lose sight of the fullness of who He is by limiting Him to one attribute. We can't base our relationship with the Christ off of our earthly friendships. It'll never work. While there are wonderful aspects of friendship which are very true of who Christ is... I wonder if we sometimes forget that He was the originator of all of them and from Him does any of that flow. Only because of Christ are we able to love, trust, be loyal and faithful. Only because He first chose us can we be His friend. 

Who is Jesus to you? 

Don't limit yourself to one thing. 

It's not a short answer. It doesn't have to be (unless we come up with some all-inclusive word to convey the majesty of who He is). 

Let Him exist in the fullness of who He is within you... and don't define your relationship with Him based on your earthly friendships. He is more. There is more. It's full of mystery and there's no room for the guilt of how you've been such a 'bad friend' to Jesus.  

Love Him. Be obedient to Him. Honor Him with your life. 

But don't reduce Him. 

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