Russell A. Cardwell Online

Jesus’ Friends

by Russell Cardwell @ 5:13 pm. Filed under Epiphanies, Worship. [add to del.icio.us]

Throughout the Lenten season, I’ve been using John 15:13 to introduce our Lent theme song, Above All—

Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.

I have focused on the magnitude of his love—the awesome amazing love. And I have focused on the magnitude of the sacrifice. Just to give up the bliss of eternity, the perfection of paradise to descend into this darkness, this fallen world—is that not sacrifice enough? But to suffer the agony, the ignominy of the cross! What kind of love is this? What kind of sacrifice?

But somehow when I said the words again on Easter Morning, the final word leapt into focus: the word friends. He said, “lay down his life for his friends.�?

The arithmetic of the crucifixion fools us. Jesus died thousands of years ago, thousands of miles away. He died to save all humankind—all the teeming billions of souls strewn across the globe and stretching down the centuries and millennia, for all time. The math defeats us. We are single blades of grass lost in a prairie as seen from outer space. And Jesus—that far away, long ago Christ—who are we to him? Yet here he plainly says he died for his friends. That’s us—you and me. He calls us his friends!

On a clear day, have you ever stepped outside and looked up into the air and seen that vast expanse of blue, and it looks so far away? But this is mere illusion. For in reality it’s right here, all around us. We breathe it in without knowing, every moment of our lives.

The same is true of Christ. Let’s not be fooled by the math. He is no long ago, far away, guy in the sky. He is closer to us than the very air we breathe.