Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners
There are many metaphors and images we use in order to wrap our puny, finite minds around the reality of who Jesus is. As creatures dependent on God for everything we tend to gravitate toward the particular metaphor/s that satisfies our immediate needs. That helps us to relate to him in our present situation, to feel as though he understands us, can help us, can offer the solution to our problems. But how often do we ever think about Jesus as a friend?
This life can be so lonely. The human condition is one where people, unique and special individuals, can find themselves feeling all alone, even in the midst of a crowd. They can feel like they do not have a friend in the world, even though it may not be true. For those in ministry, this loneliness can creep in like a mist. It can begin the slow strangle-hold that eventually leaves us feeling choked off from companionship. Feelings of abandonment and loneliness are enough to drive people crazy, some even to the point of self-murder. Why is that?
I believe that people were created to be social creatures. We find our identity in the context of others. I need to see you, touch you, hear you, smell you, and know you are there, because it is only then that I can know where I am not. A precious friend of mine once told me his "theology of a hug." He said that in a simple hug, we can discover our personhood, because the sensation of touch lets us know where we end and another begins. Physical boundaries can validate personhood. We speak so often of community, and yet we practice it so poorly. We are not eastern mystics who believe that the goal of reality is to become absorbed into the collective consciousness, to somehow lose our identity in a state of nirvana or impersonal bliss. Instead we believe in a perfect communion, but that communion is not one that annihilates identity, but validates it. A true community is one made up of real people, unique and special simply because they are. And these people have needs. That is why isolation can drive a person mad. That is why loneliness can produce feelings of such intense despair that the mind will rationalize suicide as the only means of escape.
Living in Mississippi can make anyone feel alone. Being a thousand miles from my world can at times produce feelings of isolation and abandonment. But I realised something profound that for whatever reason I had been missing all along: In Jesus I have a friend. How do we communicate this truth to the world? How do we tell people that when they feel like everyone else has ignored them they have his uttermost attention? How do we convey to them that when they feel like they have no one who understands them he is the incarnate one who entered into the brokenness of the human condition? How do we explain to them that, while no one has called them or invited them to participate in anything they do, he has been calling them by name all along, standing at the door knocking ever so gently? Maybe we struggle to share this with others because we ourselves have not embraced the friendship of Jesus. We have accepted his sacrifice for redemption, and the cleansing and empowering gift of his Spirit. But do we consider him a friend? Do we find him satisfying the deepest and most primitive needs of the human soul? Do we even realise that he more than loves us, he likes us as well?
Perhaps we need to let Jesus be our friend. I'm not talking about a mushy gushy friendship at the expense of all other metaphors like we find in so many churches today. I'm talking about seeing him once again as the one who dines at the tables of tax collectors and sinners (Luke 7:34), the one who desires to know and be known at the most intimate levels, and the only one who can satisfy completely. Maybe then we can somehow communicate this truth to a lonely and pitiful world.
Jesus! What a Friend for Sinners
J. Wilbur Chapman, 1910
Jesus! what a Friend for sinners!
Jesus! Lover of my soul;
Friends may fail me, foes assail me,
He, my Savior, makes me whole.
Refrain
Hallelujah! what a Savior!
Hallelujah! what a Friend!
Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end.
Jesus! what a Strength in weakness!
Let me hide myself in Him.
Tempted, tried, and sometimes failing,
He, my Strength, my victory wins.
Refrain
Jesus! what a Help in sorrow!
While the billows over me roll,
Even when my heart is breaking,
He, my Comfort, helps my soul.
Refrain
Jesus! what a Guide and Keeper!
While the tempest still is high,
Storms about me, night overtakes me,
He, my Pilot, hears my cry.
Refrain
Jesus! I do now receive Him,
more than all in Him I find.
He hath granted me forgiveness,
I am His, and He is mine.
Refrain
