One little word: lonely.
Being by yourself is one thing. But lots of people feel trapped in their aloneness. And in this season of restricted social movement, more people are alone against their will and finding themselves lonely.
In a cloud of loneliness the other afternoon, I flicked on our church Spotify playlist to distract me with some more wholesome music.
“Messiah still, and all alone…”
This line lodged in my mind for a moment. Jesus was all alone at the cross. Jesus knows what it is like to experience being alone in a horrible situation.
We read in the New Testament accounts of his death that Jesus calls out from the cross, in a reference to Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
He felt forsaken. Utterly abandoned. Jesus was cut off from relationships. He was abandoned by his friends, who ran away when he got arrested. And worse than that, he was cut off from his Father, with whom he has had the closest of relationships since before the creation of the world. At the cross, Jesus took on the sin of the whole world, and sin breaks relationships with God.
So Jesus was alone. He has felt the terrible pain of separation. He has felt this aloneness.
He has gone through this and more. He has felt like this and worse. And it was for us.
He loves us and he has been through the trials of human life on earth, just like us.
The writer of Hebrews puts it like this:
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
We may still be lonely. But we can bring this to him, knowing he knows, and he cares.
(Hear the full song: O Praise the Name by Hillsong Worship)
