Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Mar/78

Contributor - Rev. Wallace Stoepker

Title - The Loneliness Of Christ

Topic - Meditation

John 16:32. "The hour is coming, indeed it has now come, when you will be scattered, every man to his own home and will leave me alone, yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me."

"Now I am all alone," he said to his pastor after having lost his wife by death a few days before. His emotion and empty feeling is shared by many with a similar experience.

Alone, loneliness is a feeling that most of us dread. Even a child panics when he strays from his parents in a store and can't find them. From earliest childhood it is human nature to desire to be near others. An older woman who was forced to live by herself kept a diary. After she died the diary was found, and day after day was the same record, "No one called today."

Perhaps few of us have given thought to the fact that our Lord Jesus endured loneliness as a part of his suffering and cross. His greatest loneliness was foreshadowed when he said, "you will all be scattered .... and will leave me alone." Yet, it almost sounds contradictory to express that Christ was lonely, for he had a band of followers called the apostles who were with him constantly, and everywhere he traveled he was pressed upon by the great crowds that sought to hear him. He could hardly find a time or place for solitude or rest.

But, loneliness was first revealed in his early life when even his parents seemed not to understand his presence in the temple and the reason he gave for being there; "Did you not know that I must be in my Father's House?" All through life he was like the person who is surrounded by people, yet none are able to share his deepest feeling.

Jesus revealed his loneliness when he said, "Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of man has nowhere to lay his head." Luke 9:58. Jesus was lonely in his own family and community. Matthew tells us that members of his family joined in the derision at Nazareth and said, "Where did this man get his wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the carpenter's son ... He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief." John 7:5 gives us further information, "For even his brothers did not believe in him." Like the people, for fear of the Jews, they were afraid "to speak openly of him." Imagine the loneliness of rejection by your own family. But all of this ought not to surprise us, for it was foretold by Isaiah, "He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows." 53:3.

His solitude was shown by his being alone in his temptation. He was led into the wilderness to be tempted away from other people. One of the gospels tells us that when he went up into the hills to pray that when the evening came he was alone. He had to pray by himself, since none could share his thoughts.

After three years of a lonesome ministry we see the intensity of the feeling in the final days and events of Christ's life. First, go to Gethsemane. Remember his plea to the three with him, "watch with me, my soul is sorrowful." Yet, he was abandoned in this trying hour by the disciples who three times slept instead of sharing the burden in prayer. When Jesus arose from prayer, the temple officers came to arrest him. They seized him. "Then all the disciples forsook him and fled." Our Lord Jesus was then led to stand trial alone before the high priest, Caiaphas, and the sanhedren; before King Herod and before Pontius Pilate. Peter watched the trials but followed "afar off." After his condemnation he bore his cross alone toward Calvary, till one, a stranger, was forced to carry that burden. Some of his followers finally dared to gather at the foot of the cross, but it was too late to comfort the lonely Christ. Perhaps his greatest suffering was expressed in the mysterious cry, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Joseph and Nicodemus came to request permission to bury the body of Jesus, but it was too late to befriend him.

But, even now, the Christ calls for our loyalty and friendship and a pledge to "be faithful until death." When man forsook, Christ found comfort in this, "yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me."

Alone, alone, He bore it all alone. He gave himself to save his own.

He suffered, bled and died, alone, alone. Ben H. Price

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