We follow flights of arrows. We watch for them at intersect ions. We pursue them with haste as we speed our carts down supermarket aisles. We follow them up staircases at work, and down bleacher steps at the basketball gym. When we want to win friends and influence people, we males can often be found with an Arrow shirt on our backs. Females of the species are hopeful some gentleman will aim Cupid’s arrow at their hearts.
We forget that arrows were once weapons. Archaeologists have dug up more arrows in the land of Israel than Quaker has oats.
David and Jonathan knew about arrows. They were both brave warriors who had fought against the Philistines. Jonathan was the son of King Saul, and David’s best friend. The story of David and Jonathan is a story of friendship at its best. Aristotle said that a friend can be defined as a single soul dwelling in two bodies. No wonder then that we read that Jonathan loved David as his own soul. Even as the Son of David would love a disciple named John, did David love Jonathan.
Mark Twain once told a reporter, "I don’t say much about heaven and hell because I have friends in both places." David’s heavenly friendship with Jonathan took place in the crucible of Saul’s hellish jealousy. Saul hated David because of his popularity and his prowess as a warrior. He reminded Jonathan that this upstart from Bethlehem might even become the next king and usurp his role as the crown prince awaiting the throne.
Jonathan often risked his life to warn David of danger. To Jonathan’s way of thinking, the power of friendship was stronger than the Machiavellian quest for power. He had already told David to flee during a black day when the melancholy monarch Saul wished to murder the shepherd lad.
Now, as the feast of the new moon was approaching, the two lads met in a field. In this meeting under the open sky they were safe from the prying ears of spies. They met to reaffirm their covenant of friendship, and devised a test to see if David should continue in Saul’s court. David suggested to Jonathan that he leave the king’s table for a few days. Israel’s kings usually ate with only their closest advisors. In Saul’s case, he dined with his son Jonathan, his general Abner, and his lyre player, David. No women were allowed at his table, as is still the custom with Middle Eastern sheiks.
While David hid in the valley of Ezel, Saul noticed his absence on the first day of the feast. "Perhaps he is ritually unclean and so is not with me," reasoned Saul. On the second day of his absence, Jonathan suggested that David had returned home to offer sacrifices with his family. Saul was furious - to think that David would not appear at his table. In fury he even threw a spear at Jonathan.
On the morning of the third day, Jonathan and a young archer went to the field where David was hiding by a big rock. Earlier they had planned as a signal the use of three arrows. If the arrows shot by the archer landed in front of the rock, then David knew the coast was clear and he could return to Saul’s court in safety. If, however, the arrows were shot over the rock, David was to flee for his life. The arrows flew through the spring air and arched their message of flight over the fugitive hovering behind the rock pile - David was to run for his life.
He emerged from the rock, salaamed three times before Jonathan, and the two men kissed each other. Then they parted only to meet once more in the barren wilderness near Arabia.
David would later bury Jonathan after his death in battle against the Philistines. He would never forget the friendship of Jonathan, and would see to it that the lame son of his friend always had a place reserved for him at his table.
The friendship of David and Jonathan was as strong as Gibraltar; as everlasting as the waves beating on the shores, and as fragrant as an April garden caressed by a midmorning rain.
The shepherd was seized by raiders and became a slave. Each day he would call his sheep by name, and legend has it, that he even talked to the birds and played melodies to them with his flute. Legend insists that this shepherd of peace drove out the serpents of his new land. His name was St. Patrick.
The shepherd we worship had not read Dale Carnegie and the pop psychologists who exhort us on effective methods enabling us to "win friends and influence people." He had no friends on that black Friday night of betrayal. Christ, who is the friend of us all, died friendless and despised. The Son of David, who is the friend of the fugitives and the forsaken. The Good Shepherd who brings comfort and love to the prisoner.
In the days given to him before his execution by the Nazis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the young German pastor, wrote these words from his prison cell in Tegel:
Who am I?
restless and longing and sick,
like a bird in a cage.
struggling for breath, as though
hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers,
for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness,
for neighbors.1
Jonathan was a friend to David in the shepherd’s dark night of the soul. A friend is someone who is at your doorstep when the rest of the world has gone home. Proverbs 18:24 speaks of a friend who sticks to us closer than death. His name is Jesus Christ. Because of his friendship for us, we are empowered to reach out our hands in friendship to other people.
1. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Prayers From Prison, "Who am I?" Fortress Press, Philadelphia,1979, p. 17.