Alone

Alone.

That is what you are alone.

The adoring crowds shouting your name have left.

Your friend betrayed you.

Your closest disciple denied you.

The rest fled from you.

They ran from this sight.

Maybe they couldn't stand to watch.

Maybe they were afraid that they would be arrested next.

Maybe they just didn't understand what you were going through.

But there you are alone.

There are people watching, but they are deriding you.

They are mocking you.

"I thought you were king of the Jews"

"Save yourself"

No one believes in you anymore.

All of the teaching you did.

All of the healing.

All of the miracles.

It all seems such a waste.

It ends here on the cross with you alone.

You don't even know that God is with you.

"My God my God why did you abandoned me."

We feel this way too.

We feel alone.

We feel that people betray our trust.

That people deny our existence.

That people Leave us.

We feel that God is not present when we suffer.

We feel alone right now.

We feel the pain of not being together, of having to isolate ourselves.

We wonder why would God allow this.

Why would God allows any of it.

You are the Son of God and even you feel it.

Even you know what it is to be alone.

Is that the point?

If God can know our pain then we are never alone in it.

We are not alone.

Here in our pain

In our loss

In our hurt that is where God is.

God is not going to magically make it all go away.

This is what it is to be human.

To be divine is to be human, and to be human is to be divine.

To sit here alone is the point.

Because this is where God is.

This is where our savior is.

This is where God finds us.

And we learn a truth revealed to us by Jesus on the cross…

We are not alone.

Even when we feel that way.

Even when things are at their worst God is there.

God is in that moment of our betrayal.

God is in the moment of our denial.

God is in the moment of abandonment.

God is on the cross.

Because of this night we can know that God is with us in all things.

We can know that we are never alone.

Amen