![]() The wind whipped into a fury and the angel pulled the sleeve of his robe across his face. He raised his arms aloft and a dry wind whipped his white robe around him.Ī whirlwind formed before him, pulling dust from the hillside into a column that took the shape of a man. The angel stood on a barren hillside on the outskirts of the holy city of Jerusalem. "You can only eat so much white cake, my friend." "Of course, so I can take crap in a thousand languages." "Because it's some kind of anniversary in dirt-dweller time of the Son's birth, and he feels it's time the whole story is told." "Why now, after so long, the four Gospels have been fine so far, and why him?" "You talk like that and you wonder why you get dirt-duty." "There's a reason Biff isn't mentioned in the other books, you know? He's a total - " A sequel? Revelations 2, just when you thought it was safe to sin?" "I'm not sure I'm supposed to know, but the rumor is that it's a new book." Stephan coughed, clearly an affectation, since angels didn't breathe. "I was reminded why angels are cast out." It's all in the orders." Stephan handed him the scroll. Pack the gift of tongues and some minor miracles. "When do I leave? I was almost finished here." "What do you think?" Stephan held out the scroll so Raziel could see the Burning Bush seal. "Really?" Raziel checked his watch, then tapped the crystal. The archangel Stephan was standing over him, brandishing a scroll like a rolled-up magazine over a piddling puppy. "Raziel, what in heaven's name are you doing?" Each time he turned the cloth a muted chorus rang from the closet, as if he'd clamped the lid down on a pickle jar full of Hallelujah Chorus. A wineskin of glory had leaked in the corner and the angel blotted it with a wad of fabric. ![]() ![]() Halos and moonbeams were sorted into piles according to brightness, satchels of wrath and scabbards of lightning hung on hooks waiting to be dusted. “What a friend we have in Jesus” therefore is an appropriate song to celebrate Jesus’ love for us.The angel was cleaning out his closets when the call came. “Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends”, Jesus told us (John 15:13). What about ‘best friend’? In as far as it is permitted to speak about Jesus as our friend, He certainly is the best friend imaginable. At the same time, there is a condition to our friendship with Jesus: we have to do what He commands us! Yes, we are friends, but we are in no way equals. He has told us everything that the Father in heaven wanted Him to tell us. Jesus calls us here his friends in the sense that He has no secrets for us. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:14,15). There is one passage in which the Lord Jesus calls his disciples his friends: “You are my friends if you do what I command you. So it is very clear that we first of all relate to Jesus as our Lord. Hundreds of times in the New Testament He is called ‘Lord’. Much more important than having Jesus as friend, is having Jesus as Lord. When people really come to know Jesus, they are overwhelmed by who He is. But it is very telling that there is not a single instance that we read of any of these tax collectors or sinners, or even the disciples of Jesus, calling Jesus friend. He certainly does not deny that it is true. This is Jesus quoting the words of the general public. There is one instance in which Jesus is described as the “friend of tax collectors and sinner” (Matthew 11:19). Nowhere in the Bible anybody describes Jesus as his friend. There is only one person in the whole Bible whom Jesus addresses as friend: “Friend, do what you came to do”, Jesus told Judas when he came to betray him (Matthew 26:50). One way to answer this would be: being Jesus’ friend is not going to help you much.
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