Our Final Stand

One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!”  

But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” 

He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.”

―The Gospel of Luke

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Dear Kate,

Did Jesus actually have any real friends?  I was thinking about that after last night, talking about friendship in my Men's Group.

The answer depends on which book of the Gospel you are reading, which passage you are quoting out of context, what context you think is the right context to read and be read by God's words.  Sometimes His "friends" seemed to be totally getting him, and other times, too dumb to understand anything at all.  Kinda like the friends we have.

Some people are easy to make friends.  Not me.  It's not that I don't want to get along with people, but that I couldn't get myself to go along with what must be part of the getting-along.

Taking your side, isn't this the least you could expect from a friend?  Yes, gently chastising you if a friend must, but let the quick about-face come soon enough before we are friendly no more.  There's me and there's the rest of the world, now whose side are you on?

No matter how you answer my initial question (and there is a mountain of books touching on the topic), everybody betrayed Jesus was the final truth.  Everyone was implicated in His death, just as everyone can be vindicated by His resurrection; so what difference does it make, being a friend to Jesus or not?

Maybe we can work ourselves backward.  On the cross, the two people who finally ended up "taking side" with Jesus were two criminals, left with nothing but their last words on their final stand.  One accused Jesus of not taking his side, even as Jesus was just right beside him.  The other honest enough to acknowledge himself being hanged in midair with virtually nothing to stand on, asked to land somewhere he could finally belong, be free from this goddamn business of taking side.

"To arrive at the point where the world can be truthfully named in its relation to God involves some grasp of the world as object of pointless futureless love; it must therefore involve levels of bewilderment, deep emotional confusion and frustration in the process, even a blurring of the boundaries between love and rejection (since we are frightened of replacing ordinary human affection with this radical and disabling love)."  Sing it, angel.

Look at the two faces beside Jesus, above in the picture, Which face is mine? is my last question.

Your dumb friend, Alex