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So what does friendship mean to you? How far would you go to stand by your best friend? What would you be prepared to sacrifice for them?

Holy Week and Easter invites us to think about friendship in different ways. The Scriptures record that the night before he died Jesus had a special supper with his disciples. Before he broke bread and blessed wine, John’s gospel tells us that Jesus got down on his hands and knees and washed his disciples’ feet. He was showing them a ‘new mandatum’- a new commandment- to love one another. He told them that from now on they were his friends if they did what he commanded them. How could they show this? - by following his example and serving one another. That commandment still holds today. Jesus calls all of us his friends if we truly show that love to one another.

Holy Week sees those first friends of Jesus denying him, betraying him, deserting him when he most needed them. But Jesus’ friendship never wavers. As he carries his cross to the place of execution he has time for those who line the path, as he hangs on the cross he ensures his mother and one of his closest friends will be encircled always by that love, he says to one of the criminals hanging next to him that today he will be with him in Paradise.

So, how far did Jesus’ friendship stretch? As wide as the embrace of God’s arms stretching out on that cross. What was he prepared to sacrifice? In Jesus’ own words, true friendship means that a man lay down his life for his friends.

As Jesus body is laid in the tomb on that first Good Friday all his friends could do was to wait and to hope.
Then, on that glorious first Easter day, Jesus meets his friends again as their Risen Lord and True Friend. He tells them to go out into the whole world with Good News!  He is alive and he calls each and every one of us into friendship with him. This is a friendship in which he will never desert us, a friendship in which we will be able to reach our full potential and a friendship in which we will find a peace and joy that only knowing Jesus Christ can bring. Good News indeed!

A very Blessed and Joyous Easter to you all!