Christ as a Friend

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Nov 10, 1874

Christ as a Friend.

THERE are few thoughts of Christ more calculated to kindle tender emotions in the hearts of all Christians than the consideration of him as a friend—“a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.”

Probably there is no one who has not known what it is to long with unutterable longing for the love of a faithful friend. Not merely a friend as society counts friendship, but a close friend, one to whom our heart may lay open its most secret thoughts and feelings. We may perhaps live long, weary years scarcely knowing the inestimable blessings of such an earthly friend, but here is a heavenly friend to whom all may have access at all times, whose love is “everlasting love,” and whose kindness is “loving kindness,” and who himself can satisfy every longing of the restless human heart.

We desire to make our dearest earthly friend the sharer of every thought, to tell him all our little interests as well as our greater concerns. To our Saviour friend we may utter our most sacred confidences, to him carry our great sorrow and our little trials, to him tell the hidden grief the world might scorn us for, or taunt us with, and even our kindest friends might not understand. The disciples of John “went and told Jesus,” and we may “go and tell Jesus,” everything, for he always understands and always sympathizes.

He is a faithful friend. Many hearts have bled over the coldness and changes of supposed friends. Bleeding hearts! here is balm for your wounds; here is a Friend; “the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.” Moreover, he can sympathize with you just here, for even among his chosen twelve, there was the traitor Judas; and in all the description of the taking and crucifying of our Saviour, excepting his own words on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” there seems to me nothing more touching than where it is said of his disciples, “And they all forsook him and fled.” Yes, he was forsaken; but he never forsakes!

Among our friends, each possesses some peculiar excellence; one excels in gentleness and sweetness, another in tenderness for our sorrows, and another enters with interest into all our enjoyments; to another we turn for counsel in perplexity, and upon still another we lean as a pillar of strength; but in Christ we find all these virtues combined; in him we find the perfection of friendship; he is wise as he is kind, faithful as he is loving. When we would choose a way that is not good, because it looks pleasant, he leads us by a dark way that we know not, but still holds us by the hand. He corrects us for our faults, but still folds us in the arms of his love.

Fellow-Christians, let us in all things trust this love that for our sakes even consented to the sufferings of death, for “greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”

Let us fully trust him, realizing that each dark providence is but kindness, and that every blessing is from his hand; that he shares our joys and sorrows here, and in Heaven will make us the sharers of his glory.—Advocate and Guardian.