They went to a place called Gethsemane; and he said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” He took with him Peter and James and John, and began to be distressed and agitated. And he said to them, “I am deeply grieved, even to death; remain here, and keep awake.” And going a little farther, he threw himself on the ground and prayed that, if it were possible, the hour might pass from him. He said, “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want.” He came and found them sleeping; and he said to Peter, “Simon, are you asleep? Could you not keep awake one hour? Keep awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.” And again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. And once more he came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy; and they did not know what to say to him." [Mark 14:32-40]
Even at the brink of his own death, Jesus is bringing life to the ones who are dearest to him.
Even at his loneliest, when his inner circle of chosen companions lets him down, Jesus remains their faithful friend.
And even when his closest friends cannot give him what he needs in this moment, Jesus does not fail them.
That's what it's like to have Jesus for a friend.
Henry Brooks Adams wrote, “One friend in a lifetime is much; two are many; three are hardly
possible.” You would think he was exaggerating or being melodramatic until you read these verses. All Jesus is looking for at this moment is a friend. And yet, those who are closest to him, even his innermost circle—the three… within the twelve… within the larger crowds of followers who went with him wherever he went—even Peter, James, and John cannot hold it together to stay awake for Jesus. One friend in a lifetime is indeed much—it would have been enough for Jesus in this moment. But even that, even one friend in a moment of crisis, is too much for Peter, James, or John. Their “eyes are heavy.” Their “flesh is weak.” Their hearts are surely anxious, too. Pick your excuse, they let Jesus down.
It is telling that, according to John’s Gospel, it was earlier on that very night that Jesus told the twelve, “I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you…” (John 15:15-16). Jesus has called them friends. And yet in the moment when Jesus needed them to be friends, they could not.
It is worth noting, too, what it is that Jesus needs of his friends in this moment. Not someone to make his trouble go away—although he wishes he did not have to endure what was in front of him, Jesus takes those wishes to God, to his Abba, the Father. He does not need friends to fix anything or to give him some advice. He does not need a friend at this moment to call for help or lend him something. He needs someone to be with him, to sit with him, just for that moment, for that hour. He needs someone who will share his heaviness of heart and in the sharing somehow make it lighter, just in the speaking and listening. He needs, as the Christian community would later be taught to do for one another, someone to weep when he is weeping (see Romans 12:15 on that point). This is, after all, what a friend does and is: someone who shows up. And in those moments when you have needed such a presence in your life and one has been afforded to you by grace, you know that Adams is right: even just one friend in a lifetime, if a genuine one, is much. More than enough. Jesus, however, does not get even one when push comes to shove.
But, wonder of wonders, when push comes to shove and Jesus is needed as a friend, Jesus shows up. Even at the point of his own death, Jesus spends what is left of his breath to bring his friends to life. He is an agent resurrection even as his life ebbs toward its end. It is amazing, isn’t it, that even nailed to a cross, Jesus can be a genuine friend for those who need him? There he is, bleeding and breathing heavily, and he spots his mother and one of his disciples in the crowd, and he offers them a future together: “Woman, behold your son…. Behold, your mother.” There he is, that same afternoon on the cross, as the two thieves on either side of him are arguing and shouting, and when the one audaciously calls out, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom,” Jesus offers him paradise. My goodness, Luke even tells us that Jesus prays for his murderers, asking, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Jesus is a friend… a friend to his heavy-eyed unreliable disciples, a friend to desperate sinners in their dying breath… a friend to even his enemies while they are killing him.
It's no wonder that so often when we retell the story of Jesus' suffering in the Garden and his death on the cross, we sing some of the words I find most powerful in all of our centuries' worth of our hymnody: “But oh, my friend, my friend indeed… who at my need his life did spend.” The amazing news of the Gospel is of a God who, in Jesus, has consistently refused to let our failures and flaking out end our friendship with him, but instead is determined to befriend this sinful world when our eyes our heavy and our spirits are weak. And to do it, even from a cross.
Even in death, our friend Jesus is committed to bringing us more fully to life. He is just that kind of friend.
Adams is right: one friend in a lifetime is much. At least if it is Jesus.
Lord Jesus, words fail again as we consider the depth of your love, the strength of your friendship to us, when we have let you down. Let us love you. Even with our half-cocked, sometimes unreliable loves, let us love, you, Jesus. Let us dare to be what you have called us—your friends
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