I have a confession. I don’t like American sit coms. For some reason I can’t get into them. Maybe it’s the factory laughter from the live audience; the corny jokes; I don’t know.
This has created a bit of tension with my children, as there is one American sit com they love: Friends. Often I have come home, and there they are, watching a repeat of the series…it finished a while ago…and they used to have discussions about it…what is Ross up to now, is he ever going to marry Rachel.
I think one reason why teenagers like Friends…and many others….the last episode had over fifty million viewers…is because by and large the story line is about who is dating who; who is breaking up with whom…. It’s all about Friends and romance….and I bet everyone here can remember falling in love….being blown off your feet by a gorgeous girl, or the smoothest man since Sean Connery…and…then taking that huge experience, not to tell your heart throb – but to tell a friend. This is the Friendship of Friends. Long may it last.
But life moves on…we get married, we have children, they fall in love…and tragedies happen: Brutal, cruel, out of the dark, tragedies. And here the whole tone of the sit com Friends with its silly story lines, cocooned comfortable Manhattan world filmed in California, and gushing oozing characters is completely out of place. It’s candy floss. OK for the fairground, but not much good when the storm clouds gather.
But if you need friendship when we are falling in love, how much more do we need friendship when tragedies strike….and not just any sort of friendship. We need to know the sort of friendship that counts…and that’s what I want to look at briefly this evening…the sort of friends when we need when times are rough…
And probably the best Bible story to look at is Job. Talk about rough times…let me remind you of the background. Job is a prosperous respected man, with one wife, and ten grown up children. He doesn’t have the glitzy fly by night success of a Hollywood actor in Friends. He has the solid success of a man who has worked hard, obeyed the rules, and been devout.
God is pleased with Job, and tells Satan so when they meet up….’Have you considered my servant Job that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man who fears God and turns away from evil.’ To this Satan cynically says…Job is just holy because of what he gets out of it. Let me attack him, and you will see, he’ll curse you. So God gives permission.
Whoa. Satan doesn’t hang around. All of Job’s businesses are wiped out, and in one day he loses all his sons and daughters. Ten children in one day.
Cruel, evil tragedy from seemingly no where. Wham. Your bank account is empty; wham your job has gone; wham your children are lost.
And Job’s response –
He gets up and tears his robe, shaves his head, falls on the ground and worships.
He worships.
The Lord gave; the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.
There is a whole Christian heresy that says the Lord only gives, He never takes away. It’s rubbish. The Lord gives and the Lord takes away…and His name is still blessed. Though we don’t understand, He is still good. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Back behind the scenes, God tells Satan that Job has remained faithful. Satan keeps up his cynicism. The guy is healthy. Best sixty year old around in town. Let me attack his body, and you’ll see. He will curse you.
God again gives permission, and again Satan wastes no time.
2:7 So Satan went from the presence of the Lord and afflicted Job with loathsome sores from the sole of his feet to the crown of his head. And he took a potsherd with which to scrape himself and sat among the ashes.
And again, even though now his wife had had enough and tells him to curse God and die, Job does not sin with his lips. He says that we should be ready to accept good and evil from the hand of God.
Now we have the entrance of those famous friends…let’s read…2:11 – 13
Job’s friends have had, quite rightly, a terrible press down the years. When they start opening their mouths there is a lot we should not learn from them. But here, before they start talking, there is something we can learn from them. There is something to help us here in these few verses – and of even more importance, something that points us to the sort of friendship God shows us when the times are rough.
Let me try and some it up in this one sentence –
The way we show our friendship in the terrible times, can reflect the friendship of God to us.
What then are the characteristics of this friendship that reflect the friendship of God?
There are three….
1. Friends come without being asked…
I am feeling really bad today. Mike and Sharon Carderreli are good friends to Mojdeh and I and today is the funeral and memorial service for their son Brian who was murdered in Afghanistan two weeks ago. The original plan was for Brian to be buried in Kabul. But when I got back from Turkey on Friday I found out that it was going to be today. I looked at the flights. It’s August. United were only offering business class. But I am feeling bad, because the most basic thing a friend should do is be there when tragedy strikes.
This is what we can learn from Job’s three friends. They heard about the terrible news and without being asked they got up from whatever they were doing and visited Job with one aim, to comfort him. They made a few phone calls to each other, booked their tickets, and made sure they all turned up at the same time. It didn’t cross their minds to think they had to be invited. That’s not what friends do when tragedy strikes. Acquaintances aren’t sure whether they should visit or not…but not friends. Friends just know they must go.
On the morning we heard of Brian’s death, I wanted to contact Khalid, an Afghan friend who was in the States, living in Arkansas. When I went on Skype to my surprise I saw he was online, so soon we were talking. You can guess why he was awake. He was driving the fifteen hours or so it takes to get from Aknasas to Harrisonberg, Virginia.. He hadn’t been asked. He was just going. He is a friend. So he went.
Another friend of Mojdeh and I, Dr John Coleman, had a friend in South Africa whose wife suddenly died. John Coleman booked his flight and went to SA for a week, just to sit with this man. That’s what friends do. They go. And that’s what Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar do: they get up and go to see Job to comfort him.
And their coming to Job uninvited, this characteristic of their friendship, points us to God’s friendship.
He sees tragedy and He comes, uninvited. He came in Christ, uninvited. And for three years He dealt with tragedy. Demons, sickness, even death. Remember the widow of Nain. She is burying her only son. Nobody invited Jesus to the funeral. But he is a friend of the suffering mother. He came. And he raised her son. Remember the lame man at the pool in John 5, or the blind man in John 9. Neither asked Jesus to come and help them. But He came. Jesus comes uninvited, because He is a friend to the broken hearted. He sees tragedy, and He comes to comfort…listen to this –
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort… who comforts us in our afflictions with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God…(1 Cor. 1:3)
He comes and He comforts.
So when we hear of a tragedy and we get into the car…not knowing what we are going to say….remember these two precious truths. First of all just by going you are showing true friendship. And secondly, your going might somehow mysteriously remind people of the friendship of God who comes, uninvited.
That then is the first characteristic of friendship that points to God’s friendship…here is the second.
2. Friends sit and cry with us
When people are mourning you can feel nervous about getting near to them. It’s easier to think that it’s better to let them be on their own. But when people are mourning, they do want people to be with them…not to lecture them, but to be with them….to suffer with them.
That’s what the friends of Job do. When they see him they can hardly recognise him…the last time they saw him he was well dressed, the man about town, suited, sharp tie, handkerchief in his top pocket. Now he is sitting in the dust of the road, wearing torn clothes, unshaved, unwashed, covered in sores….the respectable man looks worse than a wretched beggar.
His friends were shocked…but I love what they do. They don’t get out their mobiles and start phoning clinics and counsellors and social workers….hey, guys this is more serious than we thought, let’s keep our distance and bring in the experts and hide all this behind the dark windows of an ambulance.
No….they ‘raised their voices and wept’. They hated what they saw. This is a tragedy. And so they cry. I bet everyone heard them. When a Middle Eastern man cries, it’s not like us English, you know - a tear trickles down our face and we whip out our hanky, wipe it away, and look around shyly hoping nobody has noticed. No, a Middle Eastern man, once he’s crying, he has no restraint. The whole body shakes, the tears flow. He doesn’t care who hears. Well…here we have three Middle Eastern men…and they are crying because they care.
And there is no way they are going to put any spin on what has happened to Job their friend. It’s is terrible, evil, bad…and so they tear their clothes too and put dust on their heads.
Nor do they keep their distance.
And they sat with him.
They did not stand over him and examine him like a bunch of white coated doctors. He wasn’t a ‘case’ for them. He was their friend, so they got down in the dust and the mud and sat with him.
This is precious friendship. When people come and cry with you, sit in your dust with you.
Job has lost ten children, and he has a horrible skin disease. There is nothing his friends can do for him…but they do what they can…they come uninvited and sit and cry with him.
That is what Khalid was going to do the day I skyped him. He was driving to Mike and Sharon Carederelli to sit and cry with them. This is what friends do.
I remember when Mojdeh’s father died, first here in England, people came and sat with her. This was so important. And then she went to Iran and there many more came….and they sat and cried with the family. It’s what friends do.
And it is what God does.
It’s all through the Bible…but perhaps most poignantly in the story of the raising of Lazarus in John chapter 11. You remember his sisters Mary and Martha had sent Jesus a message telling him to come because their brother was sick and Jesus had not come in time, and Lazarus died. Mary is so upset. She won’t go and see Jesus when news of his late arrival is announced. She only goes when she gets a special message…The teacher is here and wants to see you. ‘ Then she goes…and she falls at his feet and weeps.
What a scene. A grieving woman sobbing at Jesus’ feet. And what does he do. He cries. And he too is a Middle Eastern man. So this was not one of two tears. Jesus’ whole body shook with emotion. Everyone saw him….many commented….see how much he loved.
Yes….see how much he loved. See how much emotion there is in God. He is not an impersonal abstract force sending out mass emails for us all to obey. He is a man full of emotion. And here when confronted with tragedy, just like Job’s friends, he comes and weeps with those who are suffering.
When I was at university I got to know an eccentric but brilliant Scotsman called Bill Raeper. He had long black hair, walked around in tatty tennis shoes, and was always ready to join you for a cup of tea or drink or whatever. He became a successful author. I liked Bill. But then in the early 1990’s he died in a plane crash. I was upset. I remember that evening trying to pray. I couldn’t. There was too much pain. I just cried. And this was OK. In fact I think was a good time of prayer. There I was just sobbing at the side of my bed for Bill. Was heaven crying with me? I don’t know. But I am glad I cried in prayer. I sensed God knew about the pain.
For that is what the Bible teaches…God does not just come in Christ, in the magnificent story of the raising of Lazarus, God weeps with us too.
And so as we show friendship in terrible times, so we are reflecting the friendship of God…for that’s what I am wanting to communicate this evening -
The way we show our friendship in the terrible times, can reflect the friendship of God
The first quality of this friendship is that we come, uninivited, like Job’s friends; the second is that we cry with our friends…and the third?
3. They did not speak a word to him
For seven days these friends did not say a word. They saw the suffering ‘was very great’, so they just sat with him. They didn’t speak.
For seven days.
That’s quite something isn’t it? As we all know, after seven days Job started talking, and then they started talking and their whole visit went completely pear shaped….but we’re not going there this evening. We’re staying with these friends when they are getting things right…and here they are completely right. They have come; they have wept; they have sat with Job; and now they are not talking to him. They just continue sitting. Probably not eating much. Probably not sleeping much. Just sitting, crying, and more sitting. One of them might have got up to stretch their legs, maybe wave through the window to Mrs Job…and then back to sitting down with Job.
There was no talking, no lecturing, no, right Job…here are the seven things you’ve got to do…first, let’s get you to a doctor, two…let’s call your psychologist….
There is none of that…because Job has lost ten children. He has a horrible disease. His suffering is intense.
They do the very best thing. They don’t talk…but they are there…Job appreciates that. They have come. They are with him. He has not been left on his own to face his tragedy. This is true friendship.
An American author, Joe Bayly and his wife, Mary Lou lost thee of their sons. One when he was just eighteen days old. A second died of leukemia when he was five. And their third in a sledding accident. Listen to Joe Bayly as he ponders on what happened after this third death…
I was sitting, torn by grief. Someone came and talked to me of God's dealings, of why it happened, of why my loved one had died, of hope beyond the grave. He talked constantly. He said things I knew were true. I was unmoved, except to wish he'd go away. He finally did.
Another came and sat beside me. He didn't talk. He didn't ask me leading questions. He just sat beside me for an hour and more, listening when I said something, answered briefly, prayed simply, left. I was moved. I was comforted. I hated to see him go."
Joe longed for the man to go who talked platitudes; he hated to see the man go who just sat and didn’t talk.
In the face of great suffering Job’s friends did not talk…and again their friendship points us to God’s.
For God does not give any explanation about suffering. He is silent. All over London this week there have been horrible tragedies. People have gone to the doctor to be told they have cancer; young children have died; car accidents have maimed and mauled; there have been mental breakdowns; grim depression, without reason, has claimed some…and further afield…AIDS in Africa, 20 million flood victims in Pakistan; fires in Russia, mud slides in China…
And God is silent. Google God flood victims and you won’t find an email explaining it all. Sometimes Christians come out with explanations, like they were really bad sinners…and it sounds ridiculous….No, God is silent. He offers no explanations or platitudes about suffering.
Just like Job’s friends, in the face of intense suffering…he does not speak a word.
He comes; he sits and cries with us; and he does not lecture us. He just stays with us. Somehow upholding us.
CONCLUSION
Friends the sit com is useless when it comes to the rough times. One of the worst nights of my life was when my mother found out that my father was having an affair with another woman and he left. I was only about ten, but I felt sick in my stomach. Something terrible had happened. And I still remember that night on TV there was a comedy, and people were laughing, and I thought – how can they laugh? My father has left us.
TV sit coms are useless when it comes to the rough times…but Job’s friend have a lot to teach us about how to be good friends in the storms. They came, they sat and cried, and they didn’t talk. We can do the same. And as we do that we are also pointing to the way God shows his friendship – He comes; he cries with us, and He too does not lecture…he is silent, but He also upholds us.
But there is more…
He came in Christ; Christ cried…not just outside Lazarus’ tomb, but also in the garden of Gethsamane, and on the cross as the nails went in…he cried out in an agony of suffering that not even Job had experienced.
And then there was silence. He hung his head and there was silence. Silence around the cross; silence in Jerusalem; and silence in heaven. The Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit were silent.
And out of this coming, and crying, and silence…Job’s suffering….and all human suffering there comes what we Christians call the cross and the resurrection, celebrated in most churches every week in Holy Communion and there what do we behold.
Not a chattering God full of ideas about our predicament, not a God with a thousand page how to overcome suffering manual in his hand, not a God with an A to Z of all the best counsellors in town…no…
We meet God who shows us his wounds.
This is my body, broken for you
This is my blood, shed for you
He comes, he sits and cries with us, and though he is silent, he also shows us those wounds.
And when we see those wounds, we know that His love is wider and vaster and stronger than all the suffering we or any Job could ever face. In these wounds is the deepest friendship the universe has ever seen.
And we are comforted. We do not understand much, but we are comforted.
Job’s friends started very well. They came, they sat and cried, they were silent. But then they opened their mouths and whipped Job with harsh platitudes…
Let us follow them tonight with their good start…and so show the friendship of God…who comes, who cries, and who is silent…and in our coming, and crying and silence, let us not then make the mistake of Job’s friends and launch into useless lectures…let us point to those wounds…let us simply say…
This is my body, broken for you
This is my blood, shed for you.
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