The stories of the friendships of Jesus when he was on the earth need cause no one to sigh, "I wish that I had lived in those days, when Jesus lived among men, that I might have been his friend too, feeling the warmth of his love, my life enriched by contact with his, and my spirit quickened by his love and grace!" The friendships of Jesus, whose stories we read in the New Testament, are only patterns of friendships into which we may enter, if we are ready to accept what he offers, and to consecrate our life to faithfulness and love.
The friendship of Jesus includes all other blessings for time and for eternity. "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's." His friendship sanctifies all pure human bonds--no friendship is complete which is not woven of a threefold cord. If Christ is our friend, all life is made rich and beautiful to us. The past, with all of sacred loss it holds, lives before us in him. The future is a garden-spot in which all life's sweet hopes, that seem to have perished on the earth, will be found growing for us.
"Fields of the past to thee shall be no more The burialground of friendships once in bloom, But the seed-plots of a harvest on before, And prophecies of life with larger room For things that are behind.
Live thou in Christ, and thy dead past shall be Alive forever with eternal day; And planted on his bosom thou shall see The flowers revived that withered on the way Amid the things behind."