The eight-year-old girl had been unimaginably abused before becoming a resident of the Pennsylvania orphanage. Understandably distant and defensive, she had no friends, not one.
Someone told an administrator that she’d seen the child hide a note in a tree outside the stone wall surrounding the campus. A supervisor retrieved the note, read it, and wept. The note, scrawled with a crayon, said: “To whoever finds this, I love you.” The little girl so desperately wanted to connect with someone that she went outside the walls of the institution and left that note on a tree: “To whoever finds this, I love you.”
God wants to connect with you; wants to be your friend. In a way, that seems strange, because people of different social, educational, or economic levels seldom become close friends. Presidents don’t generally pal with peasants. Research scholars don’t usually fraternize with grade-school dropouts. Seven-figure executives don’t ordinarily socialize with those living under a bridge. There are refreshing exceptions, but we usually form friendships with those who are like us.
If the bank president and the nighttime janitor seldom become close friends, it seems unlikely that God, who created the world, owns it, and keeps it running, would want to hang out with a gal who can’t balance her checkbook or a guy who can’t fix a leaky faucet. If well-heeled residents of SoHo shun down-and-out tenants of South Bronx, it seems doubtful that a flawless God would want to hobnob with a shabby sinner.
Despite doubts, God wants to be your friend.
He knew that would be a stretch: knew we would find it hard to feel close to someone so superior, and seemingly so far away. So, he took an astounding step to bridge the gap. Since we couldn’t become like him and go to where he is, he became like us and came to where we are. He stepped down from his throne, took off his robe, changed into his work clothes, and moved into our neighborhood. “He gave up all he had, and took the nature of a servant. He became like man and appeared in human likeness” (Philippians 2:7 TEV).
He wanted us to know that he knows how we feel. So, he went through everything we experience: birth, infancy, childhood, adolescence, and adulthood; just like us.
He got hungry, thirsty, tired, and lonely; just like us.
He walked in our shoes and went nose-to-nose with the same temptations that we tangle with: “Our High Priest is not one who cannot feel sympathy for our weaknesses. On the contrary, we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are” (Hebrews 4:15).
Everyone felt the genuineness of his friendship: Tiny tots and senile seniors. Winners and losers. Top guns and wayward sons. Crooks and cripples. Prostitutes and puritans.
He was called a friend of sinners (Matthew 11:19). And he was that. He was, in fact, the ultimate friend. He said, “The greatest love is shown when a person lays down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). And then he did just that—laid down his life for us, his friends. “He humbled himself and became obedient to death—even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).
The cross! The final blow. The end. When the last nail was set, his enemies thought they’d done him in. It sure seemed that way. But they were wrong! This was his doing, not theirs. He chose to live—and die—for his friends. For me. For you.
It was his way of saying, “Let’s be friends. Best friends.”
Remember the little girl at the top of this essay? She went outside the walls of the orphanage and left that note on a tree: “To whoever finds this, I love you.”
The enemies of Jesus took him outside the walls of Jerusalem and nailed him to a tree. A note on that tree has your name on it: “To whoever finds this, I love you.”