This week I was thinking about Isolation and how alone Jesus felt in the events leading up to the Crucifixion. As CS Lewis puts it:
“Does not every movement in the Passion write large some common element in the sufferings of our race?
First, the prayer of anguish; not granted.
Then he turns to his friends. They are asleep—as ours, or we, are so often, or busy, or away, or preoccupied.
Then he faces the Church; the very Church that He brought into existence. It condemns him. This is also characteristic. In every Church, in every institution, there is something which sooner or later works against the very purpose for which it came into existence.
But there seems to be another chance. There is the State; in this case, the Roman state. Its pretensions are far lower than those of the Jewish church, but for that reason, it may be free from local fanaticisms. It claims to be just, on a rough, worldly level. Yes, but only so far as is consistent with political expediency and raison d’état. One becomes a counter in a complicated game.
But even now all is not lost. There is still an appeal to the People—the poor and simple whom He had blessed, whom He had healed and fed and taught, to whom He himself belongs. But they have become over-night (it is nothing unusual) a murderous rabble shouting for His blood.
There is, then, nothing left but God. And to God, God’s last words are, “Why hast thou forsaken me?”
C.S. Lewis -‘Letters to Malcolm (letter VIII)”
It is striking how alone Jesus must have felt and yet how he chose in each moment to do His Fathers will and not his own. Every day putting himself in His Fathers hands, trusting Him with his future even when it meant walking through the darkest moments feeling alone.
Often when we feel isolated or alone we comfort ourselves by giving in to our own habits and desires, sometimes choosing our will over God’s will. One writer talks about how the cross is an “I” with a line through it. It’s a choice to ‘cross’ out the I - to deny my selfish desires and choose the kingdom of God over the kingdom of Dave.
On Good Friday we remember Jesus choose to do God’s will despite his fears and loneliness so that we would never have to be alone…
'And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.’ Romans 8:38-39
Not even Coronavirus…
