History’s great friendship failure …

One of the warmest feelings a person will experience in their lifetime is that moment when someone you care a lot about calls you their friend.

That’s what Jesus did with His disciples during one of the last and most intimate times He had had to spend with them …

“I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me,” John 15:15.

What an experience that had to be for the disciples to hear Jesus call them His friends!

How did they respond?

Their behavior soon after that would be one of history’s great friendship failures. Jesus would need their friendship the most in the events just ahead that would see Him arrested, falsely tried, and condemned to die on a cross. What did Jesus’ “friends” do?

They were unreliable. The toughest of Jesus’ human experiences were just ahead, so He took His disciples with him to the Garden of Gethsemane where He wanted a place and time to pray …

“Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, ‘Sit here while I go over there to pray,'” Matthew 26:26.

It turns out Jesus couldn’t rely on His friends to just be there while He spent some much needed time in prayer …

“Then he returned to the disciples and found them asleep. He said to Peter, ‘Couldn’t you watch with me even one hour? Keep watch and pray, so that you will not give in to temptation. For the spirit is willing, but the body is weak!’ Then Jesus left them a second time and prayed …” Matthew 26:40-42a.

Even after an exhortation, the disciples were still unreliable!

“When he returned to them again, he found them sleeping, for they couldn’t keep their eyes open,” Matthew 26:43.

“So he went to pray a third time, saying the same things again. Then he came to the disciples and said, ‘Go ahead and sleep. Have your rest. But look — the time has come. The Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 46 Up, let’s be going. Look, my betrayer is here!'” Matthew 26:44-46.

At a crucial time of agony for Jesus, his friends slept! They were unreliable as friends.

One “friend” betrayed Him. It wasn’t some kind of lifelong enemy that betrayed Jesus, it was a friend …

“And even as Jesus said this, Judas, one of the twelve disciples, arrived with a crowd of men armed with swords and clubs. They had been sent by the leading priests and elders of the people. The traitor, Judas, had given them a prearranged signal: ‘You will know which one to arrest when I greet him with a kiss.’ So Judas came straight to Jesus. ‘Greetings, Rabbi!’ he exclaimed and gave him the kiss. Jesus said, ‘My friend, go ahead and do what you have come for,’” Matthew 26:47-50.

They abandoned Him. Friends share life together, especially some of life’s most difficult moments. But that isn’t the kind of friends the disciples turned out to be …

“Then Jesus said to the crowd, ‘Am I some dangerous revolutionary, that you come with swords and clubs to arrest me? Why didn’t you arrest me in the Temple? I was there teaching every day. But this is all happening to fulfill the words of the prophets as recorded in the Scriptures’ At that point, all the disciples deserted him and fled,” Matthew 26:55-56.

One even denied Him. Not just once, but three times in a single night …

“Meanwhile, Peter was sitting outside in the courtyard. A servant girl came over and said to him, ‘You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.’ But Peter denied it in front of everyone. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. Later, out by the gate, another servant girl noticed him and said to those standing around, ‘This man was with Jesus of Nazareth.’ Again Peter denied it, this time with an oath. ‘I don’t even know the man,’ he said. A little later some of the other bystanders came over to Peter and said, ‘You must be one of them; we can tell by your Galilean accent.’ Peter swore, ‘A curse on me if I’m lying — I don’t know the man!’ And immediately the rooster crowed. Suddenly, Jesus’ words flashed through Peter’s mind: ‘Before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me.’ And he went away, weeping bitterly,” Matthew 26:69-75.

After reading these events, it would be easy to think, “The disciples were really lousy friends to Jesus!”

But let’s step back for a moment. If we obey Jesus, we are His friends. Are we any better friends to Him than the disciples were?

Scotty