“How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! “Jonathan lies slain on your high places. I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant have you been to me; your love to me was extraordinary, surpassing the love of women – 1 Samuel 1:25-26.
The power of true friendship is life-changing. If you know the history of David and Jonathan is anchored back in 1 Samuel 18 where we are told, “… the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as himself.” Not everyone forms friendships that we would term, “soul-mates” but that is the picture here. We often slate that terminology to male-female relationships, but their friendship might be best defined as closer than a brother, a friendship where “iron sharpens iron.” Either way, there is nothing in the text that would suggest anything inappropriate. These two men were willing to die for one another, as the narrative of their journey indicated.
The power of true friendship gives life. In one sense this is literally true. Jonathan saved David from Saul a couple of times and he defended David before his father when Saul was insanely driven to kill David. But the heart of genuine friendship is it produces life. We might have a number of adjectives to describe the life-giving impact of friendship: encouragement, strength, hope, value, worth, vision for what God can do, support, capacity, and capability and most importantly God’s will. David was a great leader, but we know that he had few friends. Jonathan was that one friend whom David could trust with his life. This is not unique; many leaders are so busy “leading” and either doing things for others or trying to get others to do things that they rarely rest long enough to make solid friendships. For leaders, everyone in their life has a functional purpose, friends are people who give leaders purpose.
The power of true friendship is irreplaceable. People have lots of acquaintances, casual connections, work partners, neighbors, and networks, all of which have various levels of trust and shared life. But the nature of having a trusted friend who would have your back and go to bat for you, can change everything for us. In our culture the idea of friendships is often defined by social media platforms and superficial associations. Friendship are sometimes hard to come by and it does not take much to derail even good friendships. When someone finds a great friend, they are worth hanging on to them.
The power of true friendship is unique. David made the statement that Jonathan’s love for him was extraordinary and unique, surpassing the love of women. The strength of their friendship was extraordinary, and David valued it over the affection of women. Clearly, we know that David had some issues with women, Bathsheba being the prime evidence, but the value of a solid friendship is remarkable and unique.
The power of true friendship is irreplaceable. There is an old song from my childhood that said, “… you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone…” (Joni Mitchel, “Big Yellow Taxi”), that reflects the reality of many things in life. Truly it is easy to take many things for granted and sometimes we develop a bit of a cavalier attitude towards precious things. David felt the full weight of Jonathan’s death and it was deeply distressing to him. One might say that Jonathan was an irreplaceable person in his life. Certainly, we know the only person who was truly irreplaceable in his life was the Lord, but from a human perspective, there was no one else in David’s life like Jonathan – he was irreplaceable.
Most of the time we challenge people if they are the right kind of friend. But in this case we discover the value of having genuine, trustworthy friends… do you have anyone like this in your life?
In His grace, Pastor Brad
