[AI translation] When I repeat this unheard of great statement of Jesus, I feel I must say that for this precious feast of Confirmation today, I did not choose this text, I did not search the Bible for a suitable Word to use as the basis for the Confirmation sermon, but it was taken from the Gospel of John. For you know that since last September we have been studying the Gospel of John chapter by chapter. So it is no human artifice or artifice that tells me that you are friends of Jesus, but it is obviously the Lord himself who is now telling us this. I myself would not dare to say so highly of anyone - myself included - that he is a friend of Jesus, but it is not a question of what we think of ourselves or of each other, but of what Jesus says. Let us accept, then, that now, in this confirmation ceremony, He, that is, the Lord Jesus, is saying to us, to the members of the congregation who are being confirmed and have been confirmed in the past, "You are my friends!"One almost wonders if there is not a mistake, is that right: a friend of Jesus? For if only the Lord of Lords and King of Kings would say that we are His servants, that we can be His servants, that we are free to enter into His service: that alone would be enough, that too would be an unheard-of honour! That too would be hard to believe, to accept. But he does not even say that, but that we are his friends! He calls us His friends, and whom does He know?! With Peter, we too can say with shame: 'Lord, you know everything, and yet you call me your friend?! For if anyone, He knows best how hostile, not friendly, our feelings are towards Him! He only knows how true is what we have been taught in the Heidelberg Catechism: We are naturally inclined to hate God and our neighbours. (cf. HKT 5 K-F) If He looks into our eyes, He sees well how much we are not His friends, and yet He dares to say to us, "You are my friends"! Well, really: only Jesus can say that! Just as he once said to the blind man, "See! To the lame man he said: Get up and walk! To the bowel-less, he said: "Get clean! To the dead, "Come out!"- In the same way, with the same authority and mandate, he now says to us here, "I no longer call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you my friends, for I have made known to you all that I have heard from my Father" (v.15) So with this word Jesus simply makes us his friends! He empowers us, he honours us, he gives us the gift!
We have no choice but to believe that He is serious about this friendship. Accept, brothers and sisters, that the Jesus who gave His life for you on Calvary, who on the cross made His body broken and His blood shed symbolic and distributed it among you, this Jesus now lifts you up, sits you down beside Him, and welcomes you as His friends! Do you know what the greatest value of this friendship is? It is that we are free to live in a very intimate and intimate relationship with Jesus! How good it is to have a good friend with whom you can talk about everything! Well: that's the kind of friend Jesus wants to be. It seems so natural, but it is not at all natural, to call Jesus by his first name! We could not imagine addressing Him, talking to Him, in any other way than in a relationship of first names. But it is also an expression of intimate friendship! Just think how intimate the Lord of the world allows you to be when you are allowed to say to Him, "You"! And you are free to tell Him everything! After all, a good friend is a friend to whom you can talk about the things of your life! I cannot give you more precious, more valuable advice - which you could so much use in whatever life may be going through - than to talk everything over with your best Friend, the Lord Jesus! But really everything! If you are in joy, if you are in pain, if you are faced with big decisions and don't know what to do, if you are tempted, if you are failing, if you are falling into sin: talk to Jesus about everything! Have no secrets from Him! You are free to tell Him everything! Even the most base thought, the most vile feeling - even that which you would not tell anyone at any cost. I could almost say that it is not so bad if you have sinful feelings in your soul, but it is a great evil if you do not reveal them to Christ, if you do not tell Him! A young man once told me that Satan haunts him with thoughts so terrible, so blasphemous to God, that he dare not say them, and is ashamed of them before himself. I said to him: That's all right, just tell Jesus, expose Satan before Jesus, however ugly he may be! Well brother, be intimate with the Lord, you are His friend!
In the Word we read we also get an answer to the question, how did we become friends of Christ? Jesus says: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you" (v.16) Do you feel the strength, the encouragement, the solid support that Jesus has in this statement? Do you think that it is just a coincidence that we are here now, praising God, confessing his holy name? Have we simply decided to spend an hour with Him and set out to follow Him? Oh, no! Our being here, our confession of faith, our following Christ, goes back much further than our resolve and our will: straight into eternity! We could resolve to exalt His holy Name, believe in Him, confess Him, because He chose us for Himself! We can be His friends because out of millions and millions of people He has chosen us, selected us, gathered us! I can illustrate what this means in practice for our faith with a picture. It's twisted up and up from the bottom. The firemen say that when the ladders next to each other have all risen above each other, that is, when the whole structure has been completely cradled, the ladder at the top has a two or three metre rise and anyone standing there feels unsteady. But if you lean the top of the ladder against something, such as a window or the roof of a house, the swaying back and forth is suddenly eliminated and the whole long ladder is firmly fixed. It's a bit like that with faith. From here, from the bottom, one's faith rises upwards, stretches upwards, from the visible world towards the invisible world - our experiences, our testimonies, our prayers, our participation in preaching sessions lift it higher and higher - but until it is supported from above, everything is wobbly, wavering, uncertain. Well: when Jesus says: "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you", it is like a ladder being propped up from above! It is on this certainty that our faith rests, and so it becomes firm, solid, stable, free from any wavering! The believer becomes more and more convinced during his life on earth of the joyful fact that it is not I who have chosen the Lord, but He has chosen me! That is why you can believe with absolute certainty that you have become a friend of Jesus: because you did not choose Him, but He chose you!
What should we be now, if we can have so great an honour? The Lord will tell you so: "As the Father hath loved me, even so have I loved you: abide in this my love. If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love: even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love." (verses 9-10) So abide in His love! It doesn't mean always loving Jesus - oh no, much more: that Jesus loves you and you must persevere in every circumstance so that you don't lose the knowledge that He does love you! "As the Father loved me, so I have loved you" - how did the Father love the Son? It cannot even be said! And yet He allowed Himself to be crucified! But he loved him there on the cross! In fact, He only loved Him then, for it was His will that He did!
God's love spares no one from suffering. Here you are, young and fresh: who knows what crosses will be put on your shoulders, what heavy sighs will rise from your hearts! Well: know that God still loves you! In fact, He loves you only truly! So even if it should all seem that He has forgotten you, or that He has turned His eyes away and closed His ears; even if He should seem indifferent to the burdens you carry, to the heartaches you suffer - then, just then, this exhortation is for you: "Abide in this my love!" Never believe anyone that Jesus does not love you! Judas would have been forgiven if he could have believed that he too was loved by the Lord! You too! Even if you fall, you can return to Him because He loves you! So He foretells that hardships will come, but you abide in His love! How? 'By keeping His commandments,' says Jesus! So it is precisely because the Lord loves you in this way that you cannot be indifferent to what He wants! In one of our brother's flat I saw a wall-saying, "What does Jesus say to him?" Jesus' friend is serious about this! And if you want to abide in the love of Jesus, place yourself very often under this question, "What does Jesus say?" What does Jesus say, for example, about what you think about, what you long for, what you imagine? What does he say about the way you play, have fun, study, behave at home? He tells you clearly and very plainly what He thinks, what His opinion is: He has put His opinion in writing, you can find it and read it - in the Bible! "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love: even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love."
Do not fear that you will thus have to live some sour, withered life, renouncing all joy! "These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full." (verse 11) That is, that your joy may be truly full! Believe, brethren, that apart from the love of Christ there is no joy that is full. There are little joys in life, joys that last for a while, but they are not always pure, sometimes they are very full of dross. When I see people who are carelessly enjoying the pleasures of the world, I often think of the Word that says: "Even when we laugh, the heart aches; and at last joy turns to sorrow" (Pro 14:13). If you could only look into his heart, you would see how much trouble and sorrow there is underneath the cheerful exterior! There is only one joy in the world that is full, complete, that has no unpleasant aftertaste: the joy of Jesus! Jesus' friends are truly happy people! Their joy is so complete that even death cannot end it! It extends, it reaches into eternity!
To this happy, joyful life you are called, because the Lord says to you today, and to all of us with you, "You are my friends!" Rise up, then, and answer the call by singing this year's Confirmation song:
Brothers and sisters, let's go boldly, the night will soon fall,
In this earthly wilderness It's a great danger to stand still.
Let us find strength to hurry on to heaven,
Not to rest before the happy goal.
Canto 455, verse 1
Amen
Date: 27 May 1951.
Lesson
Jn 15,9-27