Randy Newman wrote the song, “You Have a Friend in Me” and Pixar used it as their theme for the animated movie Toy Story. And who doesn’t need a friend, someone you feel safe with, share stories easily with, and know you can count on?

Isn’t it interesting that as Jesus moves toward the conclusion of His ministry on earth, in person, He changes the tone of the relationship with the disciples. Remember He is talking to the twelve.

“¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ 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 made known to you. “ (John 15)

“You are my friends if you do what I command”… seem harsh? These are the disciples of the Rabbi, the Messiah, and He has established what is the theme of the entire Old Testament that obedience brings joy and blessing while disobedience brings consequences of unhappiness and suffering.

Oh, to be a friend of the one who WOULD lay down his life for these friends.

The disciples have not always gotten along well. They have struggled for affirmation from Jesus, they have sought position with Him. And they have even asked for power.

²⁴ A dispute also arose among them as to which of them was considered to be greatest. ²⁵ Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. ²⁶ But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves. ²⁷ For who is greater, the one who is at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who is at the table? But I am among you as one who serves. (Luke 22)

They have struggled to know what it means to serve…

But then Jesus says something to Peter that should catch all our attention.

³¹ “Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. ³² But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.”

Jesus knows something about Peter that Peter does not know about himself. Which begs the question, what does Jesus know about me, that I do not know about myself?

We should shudder I feel. He knows our real motives, our real biases, our real disobedience. The sin of commission is haunting, but the sin of omission? Leaving undone that which should be done?

Over and over Jesus makes it pretty clear that we need to have eyes and hearts focused on the most vulnerable. So who are they in our world? And what does God call us to do for them?

You are my friend He tells us. Now we must obey. The time of His passing is near.

The time of His returning is near.