Have you ever been embarrassed by a friend? Have you ever watched, cringing while they say or do something totally inappropriate? Have you ever found yourself looking for the door, looking to escape being associated with your friend? Do you suppose you’ve ever been that friend? You have. But your greatest friend is the one who not only doesn’t run away but totally owns your failure as His own.
I know there are plenty of people who are understandably embarrassed by me. I’m one of them. The shameful thing is that I find myself embarrassed by others. That brother in the MAGA hat, and support hose that is forever forwarding the latest youtube video exposing the lizard people in Buckingham Palace is one of them. That brother with the scarf and knit beanie hiding a man bun that is forever telling us how Jesus wants us to save the planet through socialism is another. The first looks to the world like an uncouth, unthinking blithering idiot. The second looks to the world like an obsequious lick-spittle that used to give away his toys to make friends.
I on the other hand, have some of both in me. On my best days, however, I haven’t a care in the world how I look to the world. Because I know to my Father in heaven that I look just like Jesus. Because Jesus took on every shameful, humiliating embarrassment of mine and made it His own. He has even washed in His precious blood my shame over those whom He loved enough to wash in His precious blood.
We do not, in the end, love our brothers more deeply so that the world might believe the gospel. Rather we believe the gospel more that we might learn to love our brothers. It is not mere gratitude, because our Redeemer commands it of us, but it is fitting, poetic. We love our brothers in their flaws because our Brother loved us in ours.
Whether unedumacated or tutored by the wisdom of this world, the body of Christ is made up of every find of failure, every cringe-inducing, prejudiced bumpkin, every metrosexual hipster that rests in Him. From the Arminian that thinks he’s an Armenian to the Calvinist who thinks he’s Calvin, we’re all in this together, all because Jesus isn’t too cool to not just hang with us, but hang for us. When we sing, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me” we need to likewise sing, “that saved a wretch like thee.”
Brothers disagree from time to time. What they don’t do is deny the bond that makes them one, nor the One that binds them.