It’s one thing to be someone’s assistant. To help. To accomplish tasks. To pay attention to details. To anticipate needs. To follow directives.
It’s another thing to be someone’s friend. To live life together. To spend time together. To share thoughts and emotions, hopes and heartbreaks, laughter and tears.
It’s yet another thing to be someone’s sibling. To be family. To be deeply bonded. To share blood and DNA. To have a common lineage and legacy.
At one point Jesus looked at his disciples and upgraded their relationship, saying, “I no longer call you servants… Instead I call you friends.” (John 15:15) The disciples hadn’t achieved some goal, they hadn’t level-up by their performance. Something had shifted in Jesus’ heart. He simply now felt a deeper connection, a deeper love.
Then later, a mere hours after dying and coming back to life, he calls them “my brothers” for the first time. Something even more profound had happened within him. Suffering and death have a way of putting things into perspective and of bonding people.
There’s something here of Jesus’ desire in his relationship with every person. To grow from assistant, to friend, to sibling.
