Is Jesus a Nice Guy?

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. John 15:9–17

“That Jesus sure is a nice guy.”

If you ask people on the street if they think Jesus was a nice guy, most will say yes. And you know what? I think they’re right, I think that Jesus was, and is a nice guy. I suspect that if you were able to go back in time and talk to his friends from back in the day when he walked the earth, they would tell you that he was, in fact, exceptionally nice.

The problem is that we sometimes confuse niceness with social pleasantness, even passivity – especially if we don’t know the person well. When we only see someone from afar, pleasantness and passivity can come off as nice; “he doesn’t rock the boat,” “she doesn’t cause trouble,” “he is always smiling and happy,” “he doesn’t interject himself into things that don’t concern him,” “she always offers to help if it is really needed,” “what a nice guy.”

A friend, however, is not a “nice guy.” A friend, tells you the truth, a real friend loves you enough to say hard things. Real friendship can handle – and in fact grows – through the journey of hard truths shared. Jesus says in the passage quoted above, “No longer do I call you servants . . . I have called you friends.”

Jesus calls himself “the way, the truth and the life.” Jesus tells us that he has “come that we may have life to the fullest, more and better life than we ever imagined.” Jesus is “the author and the sustainer of life itself.” Jesus is the one who provides “life and breath and everything else.” Jesus invites us: ”follow me.” Jesus instructs us: “I am the vine, you are the branches, abide in me and I in you.” Jesus calls us: “friend.” And he tells us, “As your friend, I will say hard things to you. As your friend, I will challenge you. As your friend, I may make you uncomfortable, I may cause you to re-think things that you have thought for a very long time.”

I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to waste my time on a “nice guy Jesus.” I want to give my whole life to the real Jesus, the Jesus who bids me come and die, the Jesus who invites me to drop my nets and follow him, the Jesus who calls me friend.