Older and (Un)friendlier

As I am getting older, I'm noticing a few things about myself.

Why is it difficult to make new friends? There are several reasons. Making friends takes a lot of work. You must make the time/effort to meet with them; You have to let them into your life; You must open yourself up and be vulnerable. In short, you must make investments in them and they in you. In addition, I've noticed that getting older makes me more resistant to change. I like what's familiar; I am uncomfortable with what is unfamiliar. Strangers are unfamiliar. My natural inclination is to gravitate towards the people with whom I am comfortable and whom I already know.

I think that a natural part of getting older involves a certain resistance to making new friends. And this resistance, or inertia, must be overcome each time I make friends.

I'm sure you've all heard the old adage: "You can't choose your family, but at least you can choose your friends"? There is truth in this saying. What it basically means is that we are oftentimes "stuck" with family members we don't necessarily approve of or like. Our friends, however, are our friends because we like them and actually enjoy hanging out with them. In general, we hang out with people we "like," not those we "have to love." We like to be around people who we think are "cool," dress or look the way we dress and look. We usually do not like people who are too needy or perhaps not needy enough. Or some of us may pick and choose our friends according to their seeming spiritual maturity. In any case, we each have some criteria for liking some people more than others.

Now this presents a problem: according to Scripture, every Christian is a child of God, which means that every Christian is a brother and sister in Christ. Thus, in a very real sense, we are a family. That means that God chose each of us to be in His family (by adoption). We did not choose each other. So, according to the adage, we could find ourselves stuck with family members whom we do not approve of or like. Yet God calls us to love one another within the Body of Christ, to be friends.

Here at Emmanuel, my natural tendency to resist making friends is compounded by the fact that most friendships here last from two to three or four years at most. People graduate from their programs, or find new jobs, or get married, and then they leave. People are often only here for a few years before they move on. All the hard work that went into making friends is seemingly all for naught because for all intents and purposes, people do not usually keep in touch after they leave. What I am saying may not ring true for everyone, but my guess is that if you have been at Emmanuel for some time, you may have made some really good friends - people whom you have come to know and love because you have both invested time and prayer into the relationship - only to see them leave. And to have this happen year after year after year is tiring, to say the least. At Emmanuel every year we get a continual influx of potential new friends - people we must welcome and embrace as our brothers and sisters in Christ, people we have to let into our lives if we are to be friends. What I see are some of the old-timers, like myself, resisting and wanting to withdraw a little bit more each year.

Thus, as I find myself getting older, despite my attempts to be more like Christ, I realize that I am actually becoming less like Him because of this inherent inertia. When I do not want to make new friends, this is moving me away from being like Christ. This is because the essence of Christianity is a relationship. Christianity is not about attending church, or how your parents raised you, or having good morals. It is about having a relationship with God - not knowing a lot of things about Him, but knowing Him - just like any relationship we may have with a person. Moreover, as Christians, we believe that our God is a Triune God: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. I do not really understand all the nuances of the doctrine of the Trinity, but I understand that the Godhead is One God in Three Persons who are in eternal loving fellowship with each other. If you think about it for a moment, this concept is mind-blowing. A loving relationship existed before the creation of the universe, exists now, and will continue to exist when this world is no more, in our Triune God.

Not only are the three Persons of the Trinity in loving relationship with one another, but God one day said, "Let us make man in our own image..." (Gen. 1:26). Notice the plural "us" and "our." The Triune, relational God made us in His image, to be like Himself. Precisely because we were made in the image of a relational God, whether we know it or not, the defining reality of our lives and all of creation is a loving relationship. But God is not yet finished. Notice at the end of each of the six days of creation, the Scriptures tell us that God saw that "it was good." This benediction that "it was good" is repeated in verses 12, 18, 21, 25, and 31. Then suddenly in Genesis 2:18, "The Lord God said, 'it is not good….'" - a malediction. What is not good? Sin does not enter the world until chapter three. Adam at this time in chapter two is sinless. There was no sin, no suffering, no disease in the world. Everyday, Adam had a perfect quiet time, a perfect prayer life, a perfectly sinless life. In short, he had a perfect relationship with God, everyday. So what was not good? Genesis 2:18 tells us: "The Lord God said, 'It is not good for the man to be alone." It was "not good" because Adam was alone! Adam was made perfectly in the image of God, but the Bible says that because Adam was alone, it was not good. In other words, precisely because Adam was made perfectly in the image of God ("Let us make man in our own image…"), Adam could not, by himself, accurately reflect God. But because God is perfect and He only makes quality stuff, Adam was made perfectly in His image, that is, he was not made to be alone. This implies that both Adam and Eve, in their loving relationship, more accurately reflect God's image than either of them would alone. Of course, marriage is the ultimate relationship, but marriage itself points to the importance of relationships or friendships in our lives.

This makes intuitive sense to me. From experience, and paraphrasing John Piper, we know that when we are happy and full of joy, sharing that joy somehow completes the joy. Imagine you are watching your hometown team win a world championship. Our natural tendency is to turn to our neighbor who is sitting, or more likely standing, next to us, give that person a high-five and say something to effect of, "Isn't this great?!!" But what if you were alone? What if there was no one next to you to share your joy? If you are like most people, you would get on the phone, get on the internet, or go over to a friend's - because you must share your joy and express your delight. Otherwise, inexplicably, it is not as fulfilling, and the joy is not as complete.

The point I am trying to make is this: Because our God is a triune, relational God, and because He created us in His image, we are relational beings. We were not designed to be alone. We were created to partake in a loving relationship with God and with one another. We need relationships. If we are not involved in any relationships, we get depressed, sick, etc. The Bible says that if we are outside of God's relationship, we are dead. If you are a Buddhist, you can live in isolation seeking your own enlightenment; but if you are a Christian, you must be a part of a Christian community surrounded by friends. That is why the Bible talks about the Body of believers and why Jesus prays for unity among the believers.

Let me end here by talking about Jesus and His relationships. Jesus had twelve friends who went everywhere with Him for the three years of his earthly ministry. He opened Himself up to them, made Himself vulnerable to them, and shared His life with them - teaching, eating, crying, praying, and even sharing His fears of His upcoming death on the cross. But they never understood Him. They always let Him down. On the night before His death in the garden of Gethsemane, for example, three of His closest friends could not stay up with Him as He prayed (Mark 13:32-42). This happened three times. That same night, one of the Twelve, betrayed Him to his face with a kiss (Luke 22:47-48). Later that morning His most vocal supporter and friend denied Him three times (Mark 14:66-72), and the rest of His friends deserted Him (Matt 26:56b, Mark 14:50). Before his crucifixion, Jesus told his disciples, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have make known to you" (John 15:13-15). Then he showed his friends - the very ones who deserted and denied him - the greatest love of a friend, by laying down his life for them, for us.

Though I was His enemy, Jesus died for me. He is the lover of my soul. He proved it on the cross. He was abandoned by His friends. He suffered physically and was hated and ridiculed by those who killed Him. But that is not all. Jesus Christ, the Only Son of God, who was in a loving relationship with the Father before the beginning of time, experienced God's wrath: on the cross as Jesus was dying, the Father's face was turned away and the loving relationship Jesus had always known was broken. When Jesus looked up to see heaven, what awaited Him was not the beautiful face of the Father, but an abyss, an infinite emptiness left vacant by the Infinite God. Thus in Mark 15:34, Jesus cried out not "my Father" as He had always done in the previous chapters, but "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Because of what happened on the cross, our relationship with the Father was mended and we are now reconciled.

To put it another way, here is a big picture question: what was the reason for Creation?

Answer: to make God and Man friends.

In the same vein: what was the reason for Redemption?

Answer: to purchase that friendship back.

I don't know about you, but I want to be more like Jesus. I want to make friends, to show people the love of God through relationships - not only to the people whom I choose, but the ones God sends to me, the ones made in His image, the ones for whom Jesus died. I not only want to obey in this manner, but I want to enjoy obeying. I realize that this can only happen when my heart sees Jesus - the Friend who laid down his life for me - and becomes transformed into His likeness. As a Christian community here at Emmanuel, I pray that despite the encroaching impediments of age, the instinctive resistance to making new friends, and the inertia of familiarity, we would love one another as friends in Christ.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for your friendship.