An Empty Chair at Friendsgiving

There will be an empty chair at Friendsgiving this year. Many people are feeling sadness over the death of Matthew Perry, best known for his role as Chandler Bing on the TV show Friends. Perry’s tragic death was due to drowning, and he was only 54 years old. Though most had never met him, millions will sense the loss of his passing because they feel like they grew up with him as a part of their lives.

Regardless of your opinion of the TV show, Friends, it tapped into something many in my generation longed for. Surprisingly, it continues to affect newer generations similarly—maybe even more profoundly. Friends resonated with our desires to have close friendships with whom we could laugh, cry, confide, love, and be loved. The show strikes that chord even more profoundly with today’s 20-somethings because they are more lonely than ever. We are the most connected generation, but our connections are extremely shallow.

One of the features of the show was Friendsgiving. Every year, they would celebrate Thanksgiving. Whether the show got the idea somewhere else or if it is the original source is debated. However, Friendsgiving has become a part of many people’s lives. It is when friends who are not typically together on Thanksgiving gather to celebrate.

Here is the point: we all desire to have a close group of friends. We need them because we live in a fallen world where things are not as they should be. However, it is precisely this fallen world that works against us having the friends we so desperately need. This means we need to fight for these kinds of friendships. They do not simply fall into our laps. Relationships of this kind mean overlooking faults in others and others doing the same for us. It means prioritizing friendships because life will crowd it out with other insignificant things if we do not.

Here is where loss comes in. We do not grieve for things we do not love. Once we fight for relationships like this, commit to each other, and grow to love each other, one final enemy of this fallen world will seek to destroy it: death. And the more we love each other, the more profound the sadness will be when it arrives.

If you have not experienced it already, every friend group will one day have an empty chair at Friendsgiving, but this potential hurt is not a reason to shy away from each other. It is the very reason we need each other. We were not created to go through this life alone. We need each other as we face the ups and downs and even death.

As Christians, one place we should experience this kind of love is in our local church. As we worship, we laugh, we cry, we hope, and we lament together. At our local church, there will be several empty chairs at Thanksgiving this year, but hope, for the church, does not die with those who go before us. It only causes us to place our hope more firmly on our heavenly home—a place where sadness will be no more, and we will be reunited.

The TV show Friends tapped into a God-given longing for community, but Christ came so we could have it more abundantly. Death is not the end for those who place their trust in Jesus. Death only exists in this life because of sin, and Christ paid that penalty for anyone who trusts in him and his work on the cross. His resurrection is the ultimate victory over death.

The sadness millions feel at Matthew Perry’s loss is profound and appropriate, but where will it lead us? I pray that it will remind us to love those around us while we have them and, even more importantly, remind us that this world is not our home. Friends committed to Christ can have the deepest love for each other and do not need to mourn like those without hope when death comes and leaves an empty chair. Our sorrow will be intense when we lose each other, but it will never despair. It will always look forward to the day we stand together with Jesus on the Golden Shore.

-D. Eaton