friends

                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                     ©Yolanda Kauffman     

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… JOHN 15:12-15

But what happiness, what security, what joy to have someone to whom you dare to speak on terms of equality as to another self; one to whom you need have no fear to confess your failings; one to whom you can unblushingly make known what progress you have made in the spiritual life; one to whom you can entrust all the secrets of your heart and before whom you can place all your plans! 

                      Aelred of Rievaulx, Spiritual Friendship (12^th cent.)

“I’ve got your back,” a friend said to me recently. The message I received in that moment was: “If you fall, I’ll be here to help you. If you fail, I will stand beside you. If you get hurt, I will help you heal. If you need a hand, I’ve got two.” It was a simple statement of steadfast loyalty and love—the love of a true friend.

Jesus goes even farther in his message on friendship: a friend is willing to lay down life for the sake of the other. He said this, and soon thereafter he lived out the meaning of these words for all to see; he offered his own life out of love for his friends.

I’ve never been asked to go so far in a relationship. I’ve never faced a moment in which I was asked to literally sacrifice my life for the sake of a loved one. What would any of us do in such a moment? 

 

I wonder if we can even contemplate sacrificing our life for another if we haven’t already been practicing “laying down life” in the ordinary, daily moments when we are asked to make much smaller—but far from insignificant—sacrifices for our friends, neighbors, and even strangers. Have I been willing to “lay down” resentments, jealousies, prideful self-seeking, irritations big and small, my “to do” lists, among other things, for the love of my friends and neighbors? 

 

             Friendship is an invaluable gift. If you’ve heard a friend speak the words “I love you,” then you have grown wealthy beyond measure in this life. If you’ve had a friend show you that love in action, then there really is no greater treasure you could hope to receive.

             Give thanks for the holy ground of the friendships in your life. How might you express that gratitude today? Where are you being invited to “lay down life” for the love of your friends?