In the World War II series “Band of Brothers,” the soldiers of Easy Company are followed from their training through the D-Day landings and on to final victory over Hitler’s Germany. As you can imagine, not everyone in Easy Company makes it home. Soldiers die in war and a lot of soldiers died on Normandy Beach. More died in the hedgerows of Normandy and even more died crossing the bridges across the Rhine into the heart of Germany.
Toward the end of the series, an interesting thing happens. As replacements join the company, the combat veterans don’t bother to learn the names of the replacements. They don’t want to know anything about them. They don’t care where the replacements are from. They don’t want to see pictures of their wives or hear stories about what it was like back home.
The veterans, having lost so many friends in combat, don’t have the emotional energy or capacity to make new friends. They can’t cry anymore. They can’t hurt anymore. If they lose another friend, they may lose themselves as well. So, they stop making friends altogether.
In recent years, many of us have attended a lot of funerals. We’ve lost parents and siblings. We’ve lost life-long friends and co-workers. We’ve gone to funerals for neighbors we wish we had taken the time to know better.
We may have even buried our spouse.
Without even thinking about it, we make the same decision as the soldiers in Easy Company began to make. We make the choice to stop making friends. We stop loving. We’ve hurt too much, and we just can’t take any more pain or grief. We don’t make a big announcement. We just don’t make the effort anymore.
If a young couple sits on our pew in church, we’ll smile politely and nod, but we won’t make an effort to know their names or the name of their child. They’ll probably end up moving away anyway, and well, that’s another loss we can avoid if we don’t say anything.
A new neighbor moves in across the street, but we don’t take them cookies or a cake. They’ll move away too, and well, it’s just easier if you’re polite, but don’t get too close. An older gentleman or lady moves in with the family in our neighborhood. We know moving is hard. We know they don’t have many friends, but we won’t take the risk of a new friendship. They’ll probably just die anyway and that will be one less funeral we’ll have to attend.
Children move away and grandchildren too. While we used to spend a lot of time on the phone and talking over FaceTime, the sound of their voices only made us miss them more. So, now we just don’t talk to them as much anymore.
We’ve made the decision not to love anymore, and with that decision, we start to grow old. Growing old doesn’t happen when the years begin to add up. We grow old when we make the decision to stop loving.
You don’t have to live a long time to be old. You just have to stop living, and the quickest way to stop living is to stop loving. The real crime in all of this is that we’re not only robbing ourselves of joy, we’re robbing a lot of people of a love that will change their lives. After all, who knows more about love — real love — than us? We’re not fooled by the bubble gum blather peddled by our culture about what love is. We know.
Plus, we don’t need anything back. Love in our world is a contract. I love you if you promise to love me back. If you can’t love me back, then I can’t love you. And let’s be honest, there are a lot of people who can’t love you back. Like the sullen adolescent across the street who always plays his music too loud. He doesn’t have many friends.
You could be that friend. Who cares if he can’t love you back? We’ve known love. We have love. We have extra to give.
Sure, losing friends hurts. Losing people you love causes grief, but as Paul reminds us, we grieve, but we do not grieve as those who have no hope. We have hope. Jesus has shown us that love is stronger than death. Love will outlast all of our tomorrows.
Because of Christ, we can live and love in the confidence that three things last. Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these three is love.
So, this year, don’t love like there’s no tomorrow. Love knowing there is a tomorrow, and another tomorrow, and another day after that. Love in the reckless joy of knowing the day will come when every tear will be wiped away and love will be all that remains.
