Friends of Jesus

 

Did the Son of God have anyone with which he could be the 'son of man?'

I have a good friend, Chris. We’ve known each other over 20 years but really been friends for the last 15 or 16 years. We’ve been there for each other through a lot of life. I’ve written before about friendship in terms of the movie “Tombstone,’’ and if you have a friend that you know would face the mythical “Clantons” – the bad guys in the movie – like Doc Holliday did with Wyatt Earp. Chris is that person for me.

We have an agreement: whatever one of us says to the other, we will not repeat it anywhere, to anyone, and – unless it’s particularly egregious – will not judge it. We have learned that sometimes you need to just say something out loud, things you can’t say to your wife or anyone else because the words might be misunderstood or – more likely – it’s something that once you say it, you hear yourself say it and it’s over. It’s the power of being able to verbalize frustration or pain or anger without taking any of that out on someone. It gives both of us a safe space to get something out of our system.

It’s a really valuable relationship to have. As much as I love my wife (and I do), I am also careful to try not to say something that might hurt or offend her; with Chris, that doesn’t matter. I mean, really, what’s he going to do to me?

Then I wondered if Jesus, on His time on earth, had friends like that. We tend to think of the Disciples being Jesus’ friends, but they weren’t really; at least not initially. They were 12 men he picked to teach, to leave with instructions on how to carry on His ministry. And there are stories of how frustrating that relationship was for Jesus at times. He had a responsibility for them.

Then I read about the siblings: Mary, Martha and Lazarus.

Mary, Martha and Lazarus were apparently good friends of Jesus. At least, in John 11:5 it says, “Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.” The three are from Bethany (Mary is referred to as “Mary of Bethany” to identify her from the other Marys in the Gospels). Bethany was a village in Judea about two miles east of Jerusalem (John 11:18). Scholars say Bethany was situated on the well-traveled road to Jericho, and a place Jesus seemed to visit frequently.

In addition to Mary, Martha and Lazarus, Bethany was the home of Simon the leper (Mark 14:3–10), and Mark and Luke describe it as the place where the disciples prepared for Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem that final week. It’s where Jesus cursed the fig tree (Mark 11:11-13), and where Jesus returned to rest after visiting the Temple, after his triumphal entry into Jerusalem but before his crucifixion. It’s not far-fetched to think Jesus used Mary, Martha and Lazarus’ home as that place to rest and prepare for what was coming.

I don’t know when Jesus first met the three siblings, but it’s apparent he knew them well, stayed with them frequently, and they were comfortable enough with Jesus to speak their minds with him.

One of the first stories is the one where Martha is busy preparing a meal to feed Jesus and his entourage, while Mary sits at Jesus’ feet. Martha says to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself! Tell her to help me!” To tell Jesus what to do is either really bold, or else they had the kind of relationship where Martha could speak her mind to Jesus without fear.

By the way, while it does seem that Jesus is rebuking Martha for being busy when she could have been sitting and listening to him, I wonder if the point was not that Martha was busy preparing the meal for everyone – somebody had to do that - but that she had a bad attitude, a “woe-is-me” moment where she felt she was being put upon. Maybe it could have just as easily been Mary who complained to Jesus, saying, “Lord, tell Martha to quit with all this banging of pots and pans and rushing about so we can listen to you.” And if so, might Jesus not have rebuked her as he did Martha.

And then there is the story where Lazarus has died. Jesus shows up late, at least from the sisters’ perspective, and when he finally gets there Martha (and later Mary) says to Jesus, “If you had been here, our brother would not have died!” Again, Martha seems to feel free to chastise Jesus for being, from her perspective, late. “Hey, we sent for you days ago! Where have you been? You could have stopped this!” And in fact, she was right – Jesus purposely delayed his arrival, knowing full well that Lazarus was going to die before he got there.

And when Jesus got to Lazarus’ tomb, we get the shortest verse in the Bible: “Jesus wept.”

Even though Jesus knew what he was going to do, he was still apparently overcome with the emotion of his friends and what their pain and perception of this tragedy.

Jesus clearly loved Lazarus, but he did not invite Lazarus to join his traveling band of disciples. That, too, is kind of curious to me when you consider that among the men that Jesus did pick, he didn’t pick at least one long-time friend. There had to have been men Jesus grew up with, that he’d known for years (maybe Lazarus was one of those?) Instead, after a full night of prayer, Jesus picks a hated tax collector, a left-wing radical, two brothers with a temper known as the Sons of Thunder, and a guy that would eventually betray him.

Jesus didn’t seem to have someone like Lazarus, a man that clearly Jesus loved and with whom Jesus seemed to enjoy visiting often at his home in Bethany.

Maybe – and I admit this is a big “maybe”– Jesus needed a friend who he could relax with, who he could talk about the things that were happening in his ministry without worrying about how his words might be interpreted or second-guessed; where he could say “Can you believe what Thomas did?” or “This Judas is going to be the death of me.” (OK, maybe that went to far).

I wonder if the human side of Jesus didn’t need a place to escape, to relax, to not have to be “on” all the time; to escape the scrutiny of the people looking for miracles or the Pharisees looking for him to trip up. Scripture says Jesus did not have a place to “lay his head,’’ meaning he did not have a home. I wonder if this place in Bethany was not the closest thing to a home Jesus had on earth, a place where the Son of God could just be fully “human,” truly the “son of man.”

Or maybe I’m reading far too much into this.

I just know that it’s good to have a friend that you can relax and be yourself with, without fear of being misunderstood or second-guessed.

Friendship is not always about having someone who will go to war with you.

More often than not, it’s about having someone with whom you can enjoy some peace.

Rabbit Trails

 

It's easy to get lost, so why not get lost in good things?

Rabbit trails.

Not “here comes Peter Cottontail, hopping down the bunny trail.”

I’m talking when you get away from what you originally started reading or looking up because you found something related that distracted you, which caused you to start looking into that distraction, which led to another interesting tidbit that you just had to look up, which led to …you know.

I have very frequently fallen victim to rabbit trails. I am a fan of Alex Kershaw’s books, particularly his World War II books. I recently read Against All Odds: A True Story of Ultimate Courage and Survival in World War II, a fascinating story of four of the most decorated soldiers of World War II, all members of the U.S. Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, which produced four Medal of Honor winners: Maurice “Footsie” Britt, Michael Daly, Keith Ware, and Audie Murphy.

Murphy was the most decorated American soldier in World War II, who returned home and became an actor. I’d grown up watching Murphy in cowboy movies, and even as a child knew he was not a great actor by any means – he was short, didn’t have a lot of expression, and a voice that didn’t exactly command attention the way John Wayne’s voice did.

But reading about Murphy’s heroism led me to check out a book on Murphy, to read about his life. Which in turn led me to look up and watch some of his movies, particularly the one where he played himself in the movie To Hell and Back, based on his 1949 memoirs of the same name.

But in reading about Murphy, I got sidetracked into other actors who’d fought in World War II, like Lee Marvin, who was in a movie called Donovan’s Reef, which my father and I watched what felt like 100 times because it seemed like every time we turned the TV on, Donovan’s Reef was playing. It became a running joke between us, a memory I treasure.

But that led me to other movies with Marvin. The Dirty Dozen, of course, but also Cat Ballou, for which Marvin won an Oscar as Best Actor, although in his acceptance speech he gave credit to his horse, Smokey, who may well have been the best actor in the whole movie – the horse played drunk better than Marvin did.

Which led me to wondering why horses seem to ‘act’ so well in so many movies and TV shows … well, you get the idea.

Welcome to the Rabbit Trail.

This came up the other day when I was reading an article that referenced a 2023 study by music psychologist Dr. Michael Bonshor from the University of Sheffield (England) that determined the “Happiest song of all time.”

Dr Bonshor found that the most uplifting songs contain a tempo of 137 beats per minute (bpm) and an ordinary verse-chorus-verse-chorus structure. However, what makes human beings latch onto a song is an unpredictable element like a key change or a “seventh chord.”

“Previous studies have found songs are perceived as happy if they are in a major key, with a sweet spot of approximately 137 beats per minute,” Bonshor is quoted as saying. “We like ‘7th chords’ as they add interest – regular chords use three notes, whereas ‘seventh chords’ add an extra note which provides a sense of musical ‘tension’ and ‘relief.’”

The happiest song of all time? The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations.”

Others on the list included some classic from my era, like “I Got You (I Feel Good)” by the Godfather of Soul, James Brown; “September” by Earth, Wind, and Fire; “YMCA” by the Village People.

Can’t argue with science, right?

I grew up around music. My family knows that when I find something I like – music, a book, a movie – I’ll run it in the ground. If you listen to my kids, you’d think I played nothing but Hall and Oates when they were little. Even now, when I’m fixing Saturday morning breakfast for the family my soundtrack of choice for years has been Al Jarreau, or lately the Gypsy Kings.

I can listen to the music of Acoustic Alchemy any time, particularly the early stuff before original founder Nick Webb died. I could go on and on, because I have been told I have an eclectic taste in music.

The point is that I don’t seem to get tired of the stuff that I enjoy.

On the other hand – still on that rabbit trail – I came across another study, “The Effects of Different Types of Music on Mood, Tension, and Mental Clarity,’’ a 1998 paper in Alternative Methods of Health and Therapy. A total of 144 subjects completed a psychological profile before and after listening for 15 minutes to four types of music (grunge rock, classical, New Age, and designer).

With grunge rock music, “significant increases were found in hostility, sadness, tension, and fatigue, and significant reductions were observed in caring, relaxation, mental clarity, and vigor.” According to one definition of Grunge Rock, the music features “distorted electric guitar” and lyrics that are “typically angst-filled and introspective, often addressing themes such as social alienation, self-doubt, abuse, neglect, betrayal, social and emotional isolation, addiction, psychological trauma, and a desire for freedom.”

I admit I have not listened to a lot of – if any – grunge rock. According to Wikipedia (take if for what it’s worth), bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Alice in Chains – bands I have heard of – made grunge rock “the most popular form of hard rock music during the 1990s” (the period when I was apparently listening to nothing but Hall and Oates or Acoustic Alchemy).

It’s art, so it’s hard to say why one type of music, or even one particular song, moves one person and not another. My wife loves art - the picture and sculpture kind - and I have learned to appreciate it more as I have shared in her love of it. We spend a lot of time in galleries when we travel, particularly in New Orleans. But even after these many years together, she will love a piece of art that I look at and see nothing but colors on a canvas.

That’s the thing about art and music, about beauty: it’s hard to articulate. But it definitely affects us. I go back to music, and it actually makes me feel good to listen to a song I really like, no matter how many times I’ve heard it.

Researchers have found that people experience greater life satisfaction when they enjoy beauty, be it art on the wall or music or just seen while standing in a valley looking at nature.

It makes me thing of a verse in the book of Philippians that says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Paul could have gone on and on and listed some specific things, no doubt. But I don’t think the point is to be that strict. The point is to simply find the things that are true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable and make that a part of your life.

Think about them, enjoy them, and try to stay away from the stuff that is not.

That’s the kind of rabbit trail that’s worth going down.

Screen time

 

The worst moment of my week is when I get that screen time report

I was having lunch with a young man who – it just occurred to me, as I write this – is half my age! He’s in his 30s, married, kids, successful career, but is starting to question some things he hadn’t really thought about before. We always have a good conversation.

Somehow as we talked, we drifted into how much time we spend on our phones. He was telling me how he was in an airport recently and it just shocked him how everyone was just sitting there, heads buried in screen time. I told him I noticed the same thing, that doctors’ offices use to have old magazines for people to look through in the waiting room but no longer do, because everyone is scrolling and (I started to say reading, but that’s not necessarily true) looking.

Then I told him the worst moment of my week is invariably when I get that report generated by my phone that tells me my average time spent on my phone per day. It’s always a shock – most recently, something just over four hours per day. That’s not all in one sitting, of course; it’s cumulative, which shows how often I am doing something on my phone every day.

My friend said his number was worse, because of his job. Sometimes it could even be seven to eight hours.

What makes it worse is when you think that you spend, typically, eight hours a day at your job (if you have one), and eight hours a night sleeping (if you can), then the rest of that time is basically screen time – although much of the screen time is also part of those eight hours at work, or for some of us part of the eight hours of sleep if we wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get right back to sleep.

Still, he said, “when you realize that time is our most precious commodity, one thing we can’t get back or recreate, and we’re spending that much of it looking at a screen …” He shook his head. “It really bothers me,’’ he said.

It should. And it is shocking. Trevor Wheelwright, in an article on cell phone addiction (“Cell Phone Usage Stats 2025”), reported that Americans check their cell phones at average 205 times per day and spend, on average, more than five hours a day of active screen time.

Now, I can defend some of that. Instead of reading newspapers (which we don’t have anymore), I get and read most of my news from websites that I view on my cell phone. And there are emails and text messages that are often important.

But still, most of us spend more time interacting with our cell phones than we do with the people we live or work with. If you are single and live alone, work remotely, it’s very possible you might not see anyone “real” for days at a time.

Cultural critic Ted Giola, in his article “The State of Culture 2024,” (published in The Honest Broker), said we’ve moved from playing sports outside with friends to computer gaming; from reading newspapers to scrolling clickbait; from watching full stories on film to scanning reels; from writing letters to cranking out disappearing short texts; from sweetly suffering romantic courtship to swiping right.

There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal by Pamela Paul with the title, “I Went to a Silent Retreat for Five Days. It Nearly Broke My Brain.” In it, she discovered that a silent, no-phones retreat revealed how disorienting it can be when the mind is cut off from constant digital input.

I realize this is nothing you haven’t heard before. And whether we want to admit it or not, almost all of us know we spend too much time looking at screens. Almost all of us know, deep down, that it’s probably not healthy. But it’s also how life is done now. It’s not just playing games or visiting simulated other worlds (although there is a lot of that), it’s also, as I said, reading the news and checking mail and paying bills and how we get everything from car tags to passports renewed; it’s how we check in to doctors offices now, how we order food at a restaurant (I never realized there are restaurants that have done away with physical menus and now you scan a QR code to see what’s offered).

But really – 200 times a day? An average of more than five hours in a 24-hour day?

It happens so easily. You’re bored, so you scroll. You find a funny video or joke or read a post that interests you. The next time you’re bored, you remember that you weren’t bored when you went on the internet, so you do it again. Only this time you have to look longer to find something that entertains you. And the cycle starts and is repeated. It’s exactly the pattern of any addiction.

We have more information at our fingertips than any generation in the history of the world; but we’re also being lied to more than any generation in the history of the world.

What do we do? The writer of Hebrews says (in chapter 2), “We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away.”

We like to talk about the evils of what is on the internet, but really, I think the battle is actually not so much good vs. bad as it is volume. Saturation. There is much good to be gained with screen time; it’s not all bad by any means.

The real concern is whether the sheer volume of information we carry in the palm of our hands draws our attention and interest away from what really matters. It might be taking us a way from family, from friends, and ultimately – if you’re a Believer – from Christ. And if we do that, we can lose our direction and find ourselves wondering where the meaning in life went.

We can choose to spend less time looking at our screens. I’m not saying it’s easy; beating addiction (even if you don’t want to call it that) never is.

But if you use the time you gain wisely, it seems to me it will be infinitely better.

I recently read a book on fasting. It wasn’t all about fasting from food, but just the principle of fasting – denying yourself something that you think you can’t live without in order to spend that time focusing on God. It’s a way of saying that thing that you have chosen to abstain from – food, TV, your phone, whatever – is not essential to my happiness; God is.

Because we use those things like food (staying with the fasting analogy) in the correct way when God is at the center of our lives. We use our phones in a healthier way when we make sure God is at the center of our lives.

As Ms. Paul writes about the end of her silent retreat, “In the days that followed, I felt calmer and less reactive. I did not get anywhere close to enlightenment and likely never will. But I believe in trying.”

Amen.