There is a friend

There is a friend

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to the disciples, “Sit here while I go and pray over there.” And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and He began to be sorrowful and deeply distressed. Then He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch with Me” (Mathew 26:36-38).

Only Luke is with me (2 Timothy 4:11).

But the Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me (2 Timothy 4:17).

After the funeral of his wife, George Muller asked a friend to stay with him. He recorded that they sat together right through the night and never spoke a word. There are times in our lives when we just need the presence of friends.

The Lord Jesus had this experience. As the agony of Gethsemane and the cross lay before Him, Jesus asked Peter, James and John to stay with him and watch.

When Paul writes in 2 Timothy 4, “only Luke is with me,” he was experiencing the loneliness and rejection of serving God as expressed in verse 16, “At my first defence no one stood with me, but all forsook me.” It is touching that the one friend who was with Paul was Luke, the beloved physician. We have heard recently of doctors and nurses caring for those who are so desperately ill and without access to family. A vital part of that care is being close to those who feel so alone. Luke was a doctor when there were few drugs or treatments. On so many occasions, he must have felt helpless. But what Luke always brought was the heart of a friend.

A week last Sunday, at our first organised Zoom meeting, it was lovely to see the faces of so many friends. Among them I saw two who have been my friends for over 55 years. We have never lost fellowship in all that time. The present circumstances make us realise the value of the fellowship we enjoy and can so often take for granted. The One who brought us into this fellowship of life is the Lord Jesus, the friend who loves at all times (Proverbs 17:17).

Paul had witnessed the death of Stephen and raged against the Gospel he preached. But he heard the Church’s first martyr declare, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” (Acts 8:56). The Lord Jesus stood by Stephen in all the rejection and loneliness of his painful death. He didn’t take him out of the circumstances but came into his circumstances.

Towards the end of his life Paul had the same experience of the Lord Jesus: “The Lord stood with me and strengthened me, so that the message might be preached fully through me.” The Lord Jesus is the friend who sticks closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). In doing so He strengthens us to share His love and demonstrate true friendship.