Do you believe now?
Behold, the hour is coming and has arrived
when each of you will be scattered to his own home
and you will leave me alone.
But I am not alone, because the Father is with me.
I have told you this so that you might have peace in me.
As his hour approached, Jesus spoke of the glory to be revealed on the morrow. When his disciples swear their readiness to go with him, his response - "Do you believe me now?" -- sounds amused. They may be ready to oppose his enemies so that they can share his victory. But they have no idea and cannot imagine what is about to happen. Even as it happens they will not believe what they're seeing.
But before it happens they will be scattered, each to his own home like the Sanhedrin which had already sat in judgement about him. They too, as Saint John tells us, dispersed to their comfortable homes and domestic familiarity after deciding that Jesus must die. (John 7:53)
Jesus will undergo his trial, torture, and crucifixion alone. He will pass through the agony and pain of a tormented body without hesitation. He has no alternative and wants none. Nor can anyone go with him, although many will follow him, each through their own death, to join him.
But Jesus insists that even as he is suspended between the earth that rejects him and the heaven that ignores him, he is not alone. "I am not alone because the Father is with me."
Americans may be the loneliest people on earth. The Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murthy, believes that we are suffering, and many are dying of, an epidemic of loneliness. The abandonment that psychiatrists and counselors discover among their clients is universal.
Many well-meaning, enlightened parents teach their children to expect and endure loneliness in solitary cribs in baby rooms far removed from the master bedroom. They rig up baby monitors as if a televised image and electronic voice from a distant room might replace the touch and feel of maternal and paternal human flesh.
Children are isolated by the contests they must endure as their performance is graded a,b,c,d, or f. They're isolated by the threat of humiliation first in the classroom and on the playground, and then in social media. There is no safe place far from electronic surveillance where society cannot search out and destroy the assurances of unguarded musing and the integrity of one's body.
Even physical pain is banned as it's assessed one to ten and treated like a problem that must be solved immediately. It's not okay, and never necessary, to suffer a little while.
On the night before he died, Jesus assured his uncomprehending disciples that he would not be alone in his agony. "The Father is with me." Their communion will only grow more intense as death approaches. When the pain ceases he'll know he is dead, but he'll also know consummated love with suffering humanity and the One who created us.
"You cannot go with me now," he said, "but I will return to take you with me."
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I love to write. This blog helps me to meditate on the Word of God, and I hope to make some contribution to our contemplations of God's Mighty Works.
Ordinarily, I write these reflections two or three weeks in advance of their publication. I do not intend to comment on current events.
I understand many people prefer gender-neutral references to "God." I don't disagree with them but find that language impersonal, unappealing and tasteless. When I refer to "God" I think of the One whom Jesus called "Abba" and "Father", and I would not attempt to improve on Jesus' language.
You're welcome to add a thought or raise a question.