This selfless love for a friend, it seems to me, is the miraculous love which propelled four friends to seek Jesus, and the love which Jesus uses to heal us, then and now. Somehow we were made from the beginning is a way that together we can endure the worst trials of life, paralysis, sickness even death; where alone we fall apart.  We would all do well do rediscover the great spiritual power of friendship today, when it is so diminished by other lesser pursuits.