I don’t know what the next big series will be, but it will come. Kids devour a well-told tale. They will read books at one sitting that are longer than the Bible. They will camp out in icy weather to make sure they get the next installment of “Twilight” or “Harry Potter.” Were one to scan the line when a next-in-the-series arrives one would find that there are as many adults waiting to know the fate of young wizards and vampires as there are kids. It was reported, back in 1852, that when the latest installment of Uncle Tom’s Cabin arrived at the docks of Liverpool, there were crowds shouting out to the sailors before they ever came ashore, wishing to know the fate of Eliza. Some of us get just as obsessed with the next David McCullough, or Doris Kearns-Goodwin, or Douglas Brinkley biography. The allure of these works, fiction or nonfiction, is character. It’s the people we meet in them, and care about that draw us ever back.

What is also true of these characters is that they either never were (in the case of fictional ones), or aren’t around now (in the case of non-fictional ones). I have a particular fondness for Neville Longbottom who is a product of J.K. Rowling’s imagination. I also enjoy the company of Nathanael Greene, hero of the Revolutionary War, but he died in 1786. So these guys are both imaginary friends. Being imaginary or dead doesn’t keep a character from making us laugh, or giving us wise counsel. But as much as we care about them - their challenges, setbacks, and victories - that attention can not be reciprocated. It is a one-way friendship.

There are friends we meet on the page who are neither imaginary, nor long gone – friends who are real, living, and connected to us. They are the friends we make in the Bible.

God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Jesus reminds us – He is the God of the living, not the dead (Matthew 22.31-32). This is not just rabbinic sleight-of-hand. Jesus tells us that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob ARE. They exist, are alive, aware of God and devoted to him. So when we think of them, or David, or Moses, we think of friends who are real (not imaginary), and alive (not dead).

We also think of friends who reciprocate our interest in them with interest in us, our race and its outcome. The writer of Hebrews gives us a long but in no way exhaustive list of Heroes of the Faith in chapter 11. He ends the chapter by telling us that these Heroes knew they were preparing the way for us, so that “apart form us they shall not be made complete.” Before we existed they were investing in our future, and knew they were. Amazing.

Beyond this direct connection to their past there is a current connection to our present:

Therefore, since have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us. Hebrews 12.1

We “have,” currently, a stadium full of spectators – and each one part of our cheering section. Each one has already completed the course we are in the process of navigating. Each one is invested in our success. Thus we feel further motivation to succeed.

And so when we go to Bethlehem and spend time with Boaz, or to Bethany and visit the home of Mary and Martha we are with friends who are real, alive, and invested in our future. We have more friends – real friends – than we know.

Of course the greatest of them all, the one we know the best, and the one with absolute knowledge of us is Jesus.