A couple of weeks ago I had the consummate pleasure of travelling up north to join my father and his friends on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway in West Yorkshire for a late birthday party for him. We were on board a train pulled by a lovely steam engine, namely a War Department (WD) Austerity 2-8-0 tender engine, number 90733 and we were in two restored 1930s carriages, one of which was the wonderful Jubilee Bar Carriage. It was a fabulous day out and a chance for me to meet up with some of my old friends from Yorkshire and three of my pals from Belfast, who flew over just for the event. It was great to be with friends in such circumstances, with the steam flowing from the engine and the ale flowing from the taps! It was also interesting to introduce different groups of friends together, from either side of the Irish Sea.
All this made me think about friends and friendship and how they are very important to each and every one of us. Some friends can be with us and there for us for all of our lives, whereas other friendships are a little more transient: here today and gone tomorrow. As a minister I sometimes find it difficult to create and sustain friendships, especially when the call system moves some of us all over the province. It is not necessarily a good idea to make within congregations, as this can lead to accusations being levelled against ministers about favouritism, although I can say that congregations have always been very friendly towards Patsy and myself throughout our ministry. This means that new friends can be hard to come by, and the friends that we have are absolutely vital and extremely important to us. However, sometimes friends can drift away or even let us down and hurt us – this is very hard to take.
Jesus knew all about this. In John 15:15 he told his disciples that they were his friends, which, as you can imagine, was a very big deal indeed – imagine being friends with the Son of God! And yet Jesus was betrayed by one of his disciples, one of his closest friends and that must have hurt him deeply, perhaps even worse than the trials and tribulations that he would face because of that betrayal. But Jesus has to deal with that betrayal by a friend, as we sometimes have to deal with times when friends let us down, turn away from us or even betray us. One thing that we can rely on though is the friendship of Jesus, for he is the friend not only of little children but of all of us…What a friend we have in Jesus! And his friendship comes with no strings attached, he will always love us and, whatever happens, he will never ever let us down.
To quote another hymn, Can we find a friend so faithful?…no, of course we couldn’t, how could we? However, the very the least we can do is to try at least to be faithful friends to those around us. We might not be able to live up to Jesus’ standards, as for as friendship goes, and our friends might not be able to either, but we can certainly try to be the very best friends that we can be, whatever happens, under whatever circumstances…always faithful, honest and true, to the very end, just as Jesus was, is and always will be.
Paul M Holdsworth
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