Perhaps all humans at some point, experience the feeling of being "alone". Maybe the exception is those who are surrounded by a large extended family in a poor village where survival is each day's challenge. They are never physically alone and perhaps never have enough energy to consider their interior loneliness. But most of us have experienced aloneness and have felt occasionally or extensively the pangs of deep loneliness.
Jesus did.
As his hour of arrest approached, He told his disciples that they were all going to desert Him and leave Him alone. Then He added, "Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me." (John 16:32) Jesus knew the frailty of those called to be his apostles; He knew at the critical moment they would run. Peter denied it yet would soon painfully confront his own personal frailty and failure.
But Jesus as Second Person of the Trinity had never been alone. Scripture presents our eternal God as having always existed in perfect fellowship: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. On earth, as God incarnate, Jesus lived daily in perfect communion with the Father. He affirmed in numerous statements that He always did the Father's will; that to see Him was to see the Father; that He and the Father were one; that He was in the Father and the Father in Him.
In his humanity, He knew that He was about to be betrayed by one close friend and deserted by the other eleven. Yet He also knew that His eternal fellowship with the Father would continue. Until the Cross!
It is this that makes His statement in John 16:33 so poignant. From the Cross we hear His seven statements/cries/prayers. The most dramatic of all, the most shattering of all: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" Theologians and Christian philosophers try their best to understand and explain what happened. Christian poets and hymn writers use their most dramatic phrases and imagery to describe what happened. Yet it remains a mystery.
What we do know is that the One who was never alone, even when deserted by His closest friends experienced a unique, devastating aloneness on the Cross. He was forsaken so that we might never be. God the Father somehow turned His back on Jesus so that we might eternally remain in His presence.
We thank you Loving Father; we praise you Loving Saviour; because of what happened on the Cross, we are never, and will never be - alone!
Jesus did.
As his hour of arrest approached, He told his disciples that they were all going to desert Him and leave Him alone. Then He added, "Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me." (John 16:32) Jesus knew the frailty of those called to be his apostles; He knew at the critical moment they would run. Peter denied it yet would soon painfully confront his own personal frailty and failure.
But Jesus as Second Person of the Trinity had never been alone. Scripture presents our eternal God as having always existed in perfect fellowship: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. On earth, as God incarnate, Jesus lived daily in perfect communion with the Father. He affirmed in numerous statements that He always did the Father's will; that to see Him was to see the Father; that He and the Father were one; that He was in the Father and the Father in Him.
In his humanity, He knew that He was about to be betrayed by one close friend and deserted by the other eleven. Yet He also knew that His eternal fellowship with the Father would continue. Until the Cross!
It is this that makes His statement in John 16:33 so poignant. From the Cross we hear His seven statements/cries/prayers. The most dramatic of all, the most shattering of all: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?" Theologians and Christian philosophers try their best to understand and explain what happened. Christian poets and hymn writers use their most dramatic phrases and imagery to describe what happened. Yet it remains a mystery.
What we do know is that the One who was never alone, even when deserted by His closest friends experienced a unique, devastating aloneness on the Cross. He was forsaken so that we might never be. God the Father somehow turned His back on Jesus so that we might eternally remain in His presence.
We thank you Loving Father; we praise you Loving Saviour; because of what happened on the Cross, we are never, and will never be - alone!
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