No greater love

  Yesterday, I visited an old friend of mine's grave.  I was upset, I was crying out to God, and I told him that I missed him.  As providence would have it, I was reading Augustine of Hippo's "Confessions", and I came across the part of the book where Augustine was speaking of how he felt when his friend had died.  But what is a friend?  A homie?  A buddy?  A comrade?  Well, let's talk about it.  "Greater love than this no man hath, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13).  So, what does this mean?  Well, Jesus laid down his life so that you may live in him, and we are supposed to be imitators of Christ (1 Peter 2:21).  This means, even dying for our friends, because we love them.  Reading Augustine's word, even though he was not yet an orthodox Christian (remember, this was pre-schism, Orthodox and Catholic were pretty much interchangeable), I think he would have gladly died in his friend's place.  I would take a bullet for my worst enemy (assuming they weren't the one pulling the trigger).  In my culture, friends are an extension of family, and I do believe this is an extension of the natural order.  I'm not saying you need to be nice to everyone (there are times when being brash is called for), but I'm saying, that if someone is your friend, than they are also your brother and sister, and since everyone is your brother and sister, we are all friends, or at least should be.  There are many people that put this aspect of Jesus as absurd, but Jesus himself said he was our friend, most people do not doubt that Jesus is our brother if they call themselves Christian, so why would he not be our friend?  This is why we're saved as part of a community, or at least that's my theological opinion.