Luke recorded the words of Jesus:
“For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Luke 7:33-35)
Matthew wrote of the encounter of Judas with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane:
And he came up to Jesus at once and said, “Greetings, Rabbi!” And he kissed him. Jesus said to him, “Friend, do what you came to do.” Then they came up and laid hands on Jesus and seized him. (Matthew 26:49-50)
Shortly before going to the cross Jesus told his disciples:
“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you.” (John 15:12-16)
Jesus is friend to outcasts and sinners, and to disciples. He is even friend to enemies and those who betray him: not only to Judas, but also to Peter! And to all of the disciples who forsook him in the hour of greatest need, as he knew they would (Mathew 26:31).
Jesus is my friend, too. No matter how unworthy I know myself to be, he is my friend. He was my friend when I was living in the old creation, and he is my friend now that I live in the new creation. The worthiness is in him, not in me. The love originates in him, not in me. The life flows from the vine to its branches. I have standing in the presence of God because I abide in Jesus Christ, and He lives in me.
If I permit the life of Christ to operate freely in me, will I not be friend to all?
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