This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. 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. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another   (John 15:12-17)

What A Friend We Have In Jesus"

Single-handedly Facebook has changed the definition of the word "friend" to mean, among other things, mere acquaintances who keep sending me their high score on Bejeweled Blitz and information about their fake crops in FarmVille, (wherever that is) along with nonexistent happy hour cocktails and balloons. Not that I don't treasure seeing pictures of some very special children in my life, especially on their first day of school, but I don't need to know what time they went to bed last night. TMI, as they say (too much information!).

Jesus, is more my kind of friend. I can still remember every word of the old hymn, "What a Friend We Have in Jesus", learned at such an impressionable young age. And to this day, he remains the only friend who ever laid down his life for me.

In another sense, I am blessed to have a handful of friends who have laid down days (even weeks or months) of their lives to walk me through a difficult time, bearing sweet fruit that has lasted many years. It is in these few friends that I have seen Christ, been reminded of his promises, and felt the comfort and strength of his presence.

It saddens me to think about the fair weather friends that surrounded Jesus, unable to even stay awake with him in the lonely dark hours at Gethsemane, too worried about their own hides to show their faces at Calvary. I'd like to think that I would have been the kind of friend he could have depended on, through thick and thin. Maybe it's not too late.

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for the gift of your Son, our Savior and our Friend. Teach us we pray, to lay down our lives, day after day, for those who are hungry, lonely, or afraid, and in so doing, be the friend that He was, is, and will always be to us. Amen

Contributed by Linda
Sunday October 25, 2009
Liturgical Year B Week 48
Sunday Gospel Readings:
Lectionary 30 (Proper 25)
Twenty-first Sunday after Pentecost