2 Samuel 1:26

CLOSER THAN A BROTHER.”

‘I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan; very pleasant hast thou been unto me; thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.’

2 Samuel 1:26

Two great qualities were combined in Jonathan, courage and faith. With such qualities, who could be more fit to succeed to the sceptre of Israel? And yet Jonathan waived all claim on behalf of the man whom he loved; he recognised in David qualities for rule greater than his own, and without a particle of envy he stood aside to make way for him. He had the true humility of soul which is content to take the lower place, and which is commended by our Lord in the Gospel.

I. The real friend will be like Jonathan, and true friendship is best described by the same words in which true charity is described.—True friendship envieth not, vaunteth not itself, is not easily provoked, rejoiceth in the truth, and never faileth. In the world, with its sorrows and its sufferings, its trials and temptations, there is nothing more truly precious than a real friend, such a friend as Jonathan was to David and David to Jonathan.

II. There is one Friend who is ever near at hand if only we will seek Him.—In the Lord Jesus Christ are joined all the qualities of true friendship, He is a firm Friend, a constant Friend, a Friend that giveth good counsel, a Friend who has laid down His life on our behalf.

—Canon Rawnsley.

Illustrations

(1) ‘This poem owes much of its admirableness to the fact that it combines the passionate love of country and the true love of a friend. If ever a man was born for friendship it was David the king. Once and once only during his long eventful life did he find a man he could love with the multitudinous energy of his heart; and this man was the king’s son, the darling of the nation, the “beauty of the forest” they called him, as like a gazelle he bounded from crag to crag in the mountains or dashed through the thickest of the wood. The homage paid by the poet to the beauty and the strength and the glorious prowess of his friend must be supplemented by the homage we know that he paid to the noble generosity of his friend. Such was David’s In Memoriam to the one personal friend of his life. He delighted to think of his friend’s brilliancy, his strength, his courage; he was the champion of Israel, the protector of his countrymen against the natural enemy, and now the enemy was triumphant and the young hero was slain. The poem suggests some thoughts on friendship.’

(2) ‘There have been in our time—and let us be thankful for it—illustrious friendships, the fragrance of which still remains, and many of these there are still. In all such cases the bond has been a life with God. You must have known, you must still know such friendships. They are not ended on this side of the grave; for true Christian friendship we believe there is no death. “What shall this man do?”—askest thou for thy friend? He has worked for his Master here, and for every cause his Master loved while He was on earth and loves still, and now that the end cometh the friend of man and the friend of Christ is called to other work yet more beneficent.’

(3) ‘A time will come, and has indeed come to many of us, when death will lay his finger again and again on what to us seemed a charmed circle, and then there will be sad gaps in that circle. The time will come for many of us when all that made up our earthly joy will have faded away, and our home will become what the kindly-hearted poet has described: “I have had friends, I have had companions, in my days of childhood and in my schooldays. All are gone—the old familiar faces.” And then it will indeed be a dreary thing that the friendships of the past have left no remembrances on which our heart can dwell thankfully.’