James 2:23: “And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.”

Isaiah 41:8: “But thou, Israel, [art] my servant, Jacob whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham my friend.”

Seamstress: “You are going to die in his place. Why?”

Sidney Carton: “He is my friend.”   A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

I remember the first (of many times) that I read A Tale of Two Cities, I was in my early teens and I was fascinated with the character Sidney Carton.  A brilliant young lawyer but a drunkard, self-pitying individual who wasted his life and his talents. He also had an unrequited love for Lucie Manette.  He is called a jackal because a jackal helps a lion with a  kill and the lion takes all the glory.  Carton had a brilliant legal mind and saved Charles Darnay in a court of law, but it was his boss Mr. Stryver who got all the credit. Charles Darnay treated Sidney Carton horribly and looked down upon him as a man who wasted his life.  Charles Darnay was also in love with Lucie but he was also the one that Lucie loved.  Charles Darnay returned to his home in France during the French revolution and was found to be an Evermonde, an aristocrat and was sentenced to be guillotined.  Sidney Carton who bore a strong resemblance to Charles Darnay changed places with Charles Darnay in prison and went to the guillotine in his place.  As he was awaiting his turn a young woman, a seamstress who was also in line for the guillotine looked to Evermonde for courage only to discover it is not Evermonde and she exclaimed, “You are not him, you are going to die in his place, why?”  Sidney Carton simply replied: “He is my friend.”

I have read this book over and over many times and I am still haunted by those words, “He is my friend.”  He had no reason to be a friend to Charles Darnay, Charles Darnay never reached out to him in friendship. In fact he was going to marry the woman that Sidney Carton was in love with.  Did he love Lucie so much that he could not bear to have her hurt over losing the man she loved?  Did Sidney Carton feel a friendship toward Charles Darnay?  These questions have been debated in schools of learning for over 150 years. I know when I taught Literature in high school I brought my  students into a debate over these issues. Charles Dickens explored the depths of love and friendship in all his books. Yet it is Sidney Carton and his sacrifice that stands out most to me among all Dickens characters.  Sidney Carton and Pip’s love for Estella in Great Expectations where the two characters I pondered over all my life, because it exposed the heart of Charles Dickens, a lonely man who wanted only a real friend.

Maybe one reason I struggled with understanding the heart of Charles Dickens was that I listened too much to my teachers and not to my own heart. The love of Sidney Carton and Pip cannot be explained in human terms, for we limit ourselves in love so we try to explain it away in a natural sense.  Charles Dickens wrote in a time when sentimentality was popular but today we are more down to earth and practical.  Such love expressed in Dickens novel does not really exist today, we live in a world where people do not live happily forever, where the Gothic romance is cute but not real, that is not the real world we just don’t believe the fairy tales anymore.

James quotes Isaiah when he says that Abraham was a God’s friend. Oddly James uses the Greek word philos which is the Greek word for friend, a little bit lower that agape which is unconditional love.  Yet the word in Hebrew that is rendered friend  in Isaiah 41:8 by every English translation I have read is the word ahavi which means my love or my lover.  There are a number of words in Hebrew for friend, dodi, ra’ah and yadiyad but the writer uses the Hebrew word ahavi which in our society is more than a friend it is my lover. I know that sounds creepy that God should be calling Abraham his lover, it sounds much nicer to just say friend.  Twenty first century man is too hung up on sex, too pre-occupied with sex to ever accept a phrase by God saying Abraham is His lover.  But the Semitic mind and even 19^th century Dickens time period can accept being God’s lover without all the sexual innuendos.  Can we for a moment do the same?

The Septuagint uses the Greek word egaphesa in Isaiah 41:8 which is a form of the word agape and not philos which is used in James. Agape is more than friendship it is unconditional love.  To explain why James uses a different Greek word than the Septuagint is one I cannot explain.  I can in my own mind, but I would have to step off the evangelical reservation to do so and I do not have the skills or background in Greek to defend my opinion, so I will not even attempt to offer an explanation. It may be one reason why Martin Luther felt the book of James was not inspired and did not belong in the canon, but I won’t go there either. I will go as far as to suggest that the Aramaic word used in the Pershitta is racham. This is a romantic love, a tender love. It is translated into the English Bible as tender mercies. The native language of James was Aramaic, is it possible that James wrote his book in Aramaic?  It would dove tail very nicely with the book of Isaiah and not appear contradictory as it does in the Greek.

Ok enough speculation, one thing is clear the Hebrew and Aramaic calls Abraham God’s lover. Only the Greek lowers it to just a friend. But you know what?  I am thinking 21^st Century Western culture mind on the definition of friend.  In that case the Greek is right on the mark.  A friend in the Semitic mindset and even in the 1850;s when Charles Dickens wrote his novels meant something entirely different than it does today. Today we friend someone on Face Book with the click of our mouse and with another click we unfriend them.

This evening I attended a social function at my church. I am very shy and backward, I do not mix well in social settings. I usually hide behind my study partner in such settings but on this occasion she went off talking with someone for forty minutes leaving me all alone with all these people.  I sat there watching everyone socialize, laughing, chatting, having a good time while I sat in a corner alone, no one approached me, no bothered to sit down and chat with me.  Yeah, Yeah, I know you’ve got to be friendly to have friends, I’ve heard it all my life, but in my case it doesn’t work, I’m boring. I have nothing to talk about, I don’t even know who is the star pitcher is for the Green Bay Packers. So I sat there having a pity party, everyone has friends but me.

Sitting there in my corner alone I began to think about Charles Dickens. He was a famous writer and attended social functions all the time. Everyone wanted to be his friend, yet he felt so alone and friendless.  He craved the same thing that God craves, a friend.  No not the friends that you party with, have a few laughs with, talk about baseball scores with.  God has plenty of those friends who pray meaningless prayers, or chat Him up with worthless babble but ultimately seeking the friendship with God for the same reason people sought friendship with Charles Dickens.  He had a name, influence, power, a great person to network. Dickens had servants who waiting on him, took care of him, but Dickens wanted something else. He wanted what Sidney Carton had, what Pip had, and what God had with Abraham, he wanted racham. To love and be loved, to love with no strings attached, to simply have someone that you know is there and will be there for you. To have a lover in the 19^th Century and Semitic understanding of a lover.

That is what God is craving from us, that type of intimacy, that type of friendship, a lover 19^th century Semitic style. One that you can share your heart with and He can share His heart with you. One you can go to at anytime and He can come to you at anytime and you are not too busy for Him. He wants to be your ahavi  a lover as He was with Abraham.

It is too bad that we cannot translate Isaiah 41:8 as Abraham my lover. That is just too creepy, too icky, too, too, oh you know, let’s just stay with Abraham my friend and forget all that mushy stuff.