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Forever Friend
When I was in 4th grade my best friend moved away.
John 11:21,23-25,35
Have you had to watch the moving truck pull away, while someone you really liked, a friend, maybe a family member was was moving? I remember when I was in about third or fourth grade, just knowing that one of my best friends was moving away, moving hours away to a different state, and just how sad and disappointed you felt about that. So at that time, you know, you write letters, you make phone calls, you try and stay in touch. And with that particular friend we have.
As I’ve become a pastor now, you see that too. People that you love and care about move away. I’m a campus ministry pastor, so students graduate and they go on. You’ve probably experienced things like that too. You have close friends, good relationships, and then eventually a lot of times people move on and there’s disappointment, there’s sadness, there’s loss that goes with that. Well, what do we do with something like that as Christians? What are some strategies that we can have?
Well, one is in the short term, stay connected. You know, we do live in this world where we have technology, we have phones, we have social media, we have texting. Continue to reach out to those people just because they’ve moved away, it doesn’t mean that they’re gone. And sometimes you may just feel like nobody’s reaching back out to me. I’m the only one putting work into this relationship. Maybe you can just keep that up and see what happens over time, and see how God uses those relationships.
One of the other things that I’ve noticed, I’m a pastor in a small Lutheran denomination in the WELS, or maybe you’re in the ELS. One thing you can do is stay connected to church. It is just a beautiful thing how you can see fellow Christians move away and move on. But you’re connected by faith. You’re going to run in some of the same circles. And if you’re a member of a church community, odds are you’re going to run into them again. And it’s just a joyful thing. So as they move on, encourage them to stay connected to a church and do that yourself.
Now there’s lots of little short term things you can do to be able to maintain friendships and relationships. But one thing that the Christian has that nobody else has is the opportunity for friendships that go on eternally. We can think about loss and moving away and ultimately the greatest separation, the most final seeming separation is death. But the Christian knows that even when that happens, even when it’s a hearse pulling away, it’s not the end. Jesus makes that so clear. When his close friend Lazarus dies, he goes to his other friend Mary and Martha, and Martha comes to him. If you’d been here, my brother wouldn’t have died. He wouldn’t be far away from us. And even Jesus is sad, (John 11:21,35) but he gives her these amazing promises. He says, you know
Your brother will rise again.
And she knows her scriptures. She knows God’s promises. She says,
I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.
And Jesus said to her,
I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live even though they die. (John 11:23-25)
For the Christian, we have this sure hope that we will see our Christian friends again. Hopefully again in this world and on this earth as it is now. But we have the promise that we’ll see them again in heaven, because Jesus has washed away their sins and yours and the sins of the whole world. He’s connected you to him by faith. He is our greatest forever friend, and he allows us to have friends that will last eternally. Thank God for that.
