What it means to be friends with Jesus

Find today’s readings here.

One ancient notion of friendship defined it as two individuals who shared the same values and worked for each other’s good. They are two people who discover “another self” in their mutual friendship. The love they show each other is a love offered completely for the good of the other. This definition of friendship gets a thorough explanation in books VIII and IX of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, but other cultures embraced it as well. A similar type of friendship appears in the Hebrew Bible, for example, in the story of David and Jonathan (1 Sm 18:1-5) or in the Book of Proverbs (e.g., Prv 27:17). 

In John’s Gospel, the evangelist emphasizes that discipleship means becoming a friend of Christ (Jn 14:21). Mature discipleship means that Christ can look at a person and see a reflection of himself. Disciples become Christ’s friends by keeping his commandment to love one another and by living out the examples that he gave of his love when he washed his disciples’ feet and gave himself up so that they could go free. People who live this way become “another self” to Jesus Christ.

This has a mystical element as well, as today’s Gospel passage shows. God is seeking friends for the Son, individuals who reflect the same values and share the burden of the Son’s saving mission. When God finds such an individual, the same divine grace that filled Jesus’ life becomes that disciple’s inheritance as well. 

Jesus Christ lived in the experience of being completely known and completely loved. He went to his cross rather than betray this reality that he knew to be true. Those who keep Christ’s commandments and live according to his example will come to experience the same love, God dwelling with them and Jesus recognizing them as “another self.”

One of the Eucharistic Prefaces for Ordinary Time prays that God may “love in us what you love in your Son.” Our own efforts to “keep Christ’s word” and to reflect Christ’s self-giving love will stir the Advocate into action and deepen the divine love into which we have been baptized. Then Christ himself will come to see in us a true friend who shares his burdens and delights in his joys.