John 16:32 Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone… 1. There are two kinds of solitude: that of insulation in space, and that of isolation of spirit. (1) The first is simply separation by distance. This is not real solitude: for sympathy can people that with a crowd. The traveller is not alone when the faces which will greet him on his arrival seem to beam upon him as he trudges on — the solitary student is not alone when he feels that human hearts will respond to the truths which he is preparing to address to them. (2) The other is loneliness of soul. There are times when hands touch ours, but only send an icy chill of unsympathizing indifference to the heart: when words pass from our lips, but only come back as an echo without reply: when the multitude throng and press us, and we cannot say, as Christ said, "Somebody hath touched Me." 2. And there are two kinds of men who feel this last solitude. (1) The men of self-reliance: who can go sternly through duty, and scarcely shrink let what will be crushed in them. such men are invaluable in all those professions in which sensitive feeling would be a superfluity; they make iron commanders and surgeons, and statesmen who do not flinch for the dread of unpopularity. But mere self-dependence is weakness: and the conflict is terrible when a human sense of weakness is felt by such men. Jacob was alone when he slept in his way to Padan Aram, and Elijah in the wilderness. But the loneliness of the tender Jacob was very different from that of the stern Elijah. To Jacob the sympathy he yearned for was realized. A ladder raised from earth to heaven figured the possibility of communion between the spirit of man and the Spirit of God. In Elijah's case, the storm, the earthquake, and the fire did their convulsing work in the soul, before a still, small voice told him that he was not alone. (2) The men who live in sympathy. These tremble at the thought of being alone, not from want of courage but from the intensity of their affections. They want not aid, nor even countenance: but only sympathy. And the trial comes to them when they are called upon to perform a duty on which the world looks coldly. It is to this latter class that we must look if we would understand the spirit of the text. The deep humanity of the soul of Christ was gifted with those finer sensibilities of affectionate nature which stand in need of sympathy. He who selected the gentle John to be His friend — who found solace in female society — who in the trial hour could not bear even to pray without the human presence, had nothing in Him of the hard, merely self-dependent character. Note, then — I. THE LONELINESS OF CHRIST. 1. This loneliness was caused by the Divine elevation of His character. (1) There is a second-rate greatness which the world can comprehend. Contrast the Son of Man and John the Baptist. John's life had a rude, rugged goodness, on which was written, in characters which required no magnifying-glass to read, spiritual excellence. The world on the whole accepted him, and if he had not crossed the path of a weak prince and a revengeful woman, John might have finished his course with joy, recognized as irreproachable. Why did the world accept John and reject Christ? In physical nature, the naturalist finds no difficulty in comprehending the simple structure of the lowest organizations of animal life. But when he comes to study the complex anatomy of man, he has the labour of a lifetime before him. It is not difficult to master the constitution of a single country; but when you try to understand the universe, you find infinite appearances of contradiction. That which the structure of man is to the structure of the limpet: that which the universe is to a single country, the complex and boundless soul of Christ was to the souls of other men. Therefore, to the superficial observer, His life was a mass of inconsistencies and contradictions. And hence that acceptance which had marked the earlier stage of His career melted away. First the Pharisees took the alarm: then the Sadducees: then the Herodians: then the people. That was the most terrible of all: for the enmity of the upper classes is impotent; but when that cry of brute force is stirred from the deeps of society, the heart of mere earthly oak quails before it. The apostles, at all events, did quail. One denied: another betrayed: all deserted. They "were scattered each to his own": and the Truth Himself was left alone in Pilate's judgment-hall. (2):Now learn from this a very important distinction. To feel solitary is no uncommon thing. In every place victims of diseased sensibility are to be found, and they might find a weakening satisfaction in observing a parallel between their own feelings and those of Jesus. But before that, be sure that it is the elevation of your character which severs you from your species. The world has small sympathy for Divine goodness: but it also has little for a great many other qualities which are disagreeable to it. You find yourself unpopular. Well? Is that because you are above the world offending it by your purity and unworldliness? Or is it that you are wrapped up in self — cold, disobliging, sentimental? (3) The first time Christ felt this loneliness was when He was but twelve years old, amongst the doctors and asking them questions. High thoughts were in the Child's soul: larger views of duty and destiny. There is a moment in every true life — to some it comes very early — when the old routine of duty is not large enough — when the parental roof seems too low, because the Infinite above is arching over the soul — when the old formulas seem to be narrow, and they must either be thrown aside or else transformed into living and breathing realities — when the earthly father's authority is being superseded by the claims of a Father in heaven. 2. That solitude was felt by Christ in trial. In the desert, in Pilate's judgment-hall, in the garden, He was alone — and alone must every son of man meet his trial-hour. The individuality of the soul necessitates that. Each man's temptations are made up of a host of peculiarities which no other mind can measure. You are tried alone — alone you pass into the desert — alone you must bear and conquer in the agony — alone you must be sifted by the world. And there are trials more terrible. A temptation, in which the lower nature struggles for mastery, can be met by the whole united force of the spirit. But it is when obedience to a heavenly Father can be only paid by disobedience to an earthly one: or fidelity to duty can be only kept by infidelity to some entangling engagement: or the straight path must be taken over the misery of others: or the counsel of the affectionate friend must be met with a "Get thee behind Me, Satan." It is then, when human advice is unavailable, that the soul feels what it is to be alone. 3. The Redeemer's soul was alone in dying. The hour had come — they were all gone, and He was, as He predicted, left alone. All that is human drops from us in that hour. "I shall die alone" — yes, and alone you live. No atom in creation touches another — they only approach within a certain distance; then the attraction ceases, and an invisible something repels — they only seem to touch. No soul touches another soul except at one or two points; and those chiefly external. Death only realizes that which has been the fact all along. In the central deeps of our being we are alone. II. THE SPIRIT OR TEMPER OF THAT SOLITUDE. 1. Observe its grandeur. I am alone, yet not alone. There is a feeble and sentimental way in which we speak of the Man of sorrows. We turn to the cross and the loneliness to arouse compassion. You degrade that loneliness. Compassion for Him! Adore if you will; but no pity: let it draw out the firmer and manlier graces of the soul. Even in human things, the strength that is in a man can be only learnt when he is thrown upon his own resources and left alone. It is one thing to defend the truth when you know that your audience are already prepossessed, and another to hold it when met by unsympathizing suspicion, It is one thing to rush on to danger with the shouts of numbers, and another when the lonely captain of the sinking ship sees the last boatful disengage itself, and folds his arms to go down into the majesty of darkness, crushed, but not subdued. Such and greater far was the strength and majesty of the Saviour's solitariness. It was not the trial of the lonely hermit. There is a certain pleasing melancholy in his life. But there are the forms of nature to speak to him, and he has not the positive opposition of mankind if he has the absence of actual sympathy. But the solitude of Christ was the solitude of a crowd. In that single human bosom dwelt the thought which was to be the germ of the world's life: a thought unshared, misunderstood, or rejected. 2. Learn from these words self-reliance. Alone the Son of Man was content to be. He threw Himself on His own solitary thought: did not go down to meet the world; but waited, though it might be for ages, till the world should come round to Him. This is self-reliance — to believe that what is truest in you is true for all: to abide by that, and not be over-anxious to be understood, or sympathized with, certain that at last all must acknowledge the same, and that while you stand firm, the world will come round to you. There is a cowardice in this age which is not Christian. We shrink from the consequences of truth. We ask what men will think — what others will say. He who is calculating that will accomplish nothing. The Father — the Father who is with us and in us — what does He think? 3. Remark the humility of this loneliness. Had the Son of Man simply said, I can be alone, He would have said no more than any proud man can say. But when he added, "because the Father is with Me," that independence assumed another character, and self-reliance became only another form of reliance upon God. Distinguish between genuine and spurious humility. There is a false humility which says, "It is my own poor thought, and I must not trust it. Is not trust in self the great fault of our fallen nature?" Very well. Now remember something else. There is a Spirit which beareth witness with our spirits — there is a "Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world." The thought of your mind perchance is the thought of God. To refuse to follow that may be to disown God. To take the judgment and conscience of other men to live by — where is the humility of that? From whence did their conscience and judgment come? Was the fountain from which they drew exhausted for you? (F. W. Robertson, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. |
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