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… I. WE HAVE NO REASON TO SAY THAT IT IS WRONG TO RECOIL FROM BEING ALONE. 1. Adam was unfallen when God saw that it was "not good for him to be alone." Sin has always a tendency to isolate — grace to draw out the social affections. Whoever thinks of solitude in heaven? 2. Therefore, it is nothing strange that Christ should place solitude among His sorrows. The desire which brought Him down here was a longing to have a people with Him. He could not be that "grain of wheat which abideth alone." No wonder, then, that the first act of His public life was to secure companionship. And there is not a more touching trait of His whole life than that yearning after human sympathy, in the agony of Gethsemane. And, plainly, it was not for His disciples' sake that He loved to take them about with Him everywhere. Even the transfiguration would have been incomplete without the three. And after the resurrection, the only thought on which we know that He dwelt with pleasure is, "I will meet you in Galilee." And do you think that it was only for us He said it, "I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am, there ye may be also?" We can quite understand, therefore, that in the enumeration of His sorrows, such stress was laid upon the fact that "He trod the wine-press alone;" — and how that desertion of His friends struck so cold and so painfully, that He at once looked out for a refuge, "Ye shall leave Me alone, and yet I am not alone, for the Father is with Me." And then, you remember, presently came that passage which was the most tremendous of all solitude — "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" I say, then, that we have the highest warrant to affirm that solitude is to be deprecated, and that one great end of our religion is to provide the exemption. II. THE GREATEST PART OF HIS LIFE EVERY MAN IS ALONE. 1. Count up the hours of life, and most of them are passed alone. Besides, there is a moral solitude far greater than physical. Who has not felt the deep solitude of a crowd? 2. The most dangerous, because the most subtle, temptations come to us when we are alone. An unoccupied state is sure to foster what is bad in us, and our lonely hours are generally our most unoccupied ones. It was in a solitude that even our Lord had His fiercest attacks. See how it is. (1) You are by yourself — you look into yourself, and you get morbid. Things unreal take possession of your mind. — you become dreamy, unpractical — an easy prey to cankerous thought, delusion, doubt, and all unhealthy things(2) Or, the mind, alone, having no present, goes back into the past — you re-live it — old sorrows, which were healed, open again — old sins, which were forgiven, rise up — you doubt whether you have ever been pardoned — and you are most unprofitably and injuriously wretched. (3) Or, some future, which, when it really comes, will come minute by minute, now swells before you all in one black mass, casting its big, dark shadow upon the path, and you feel quite overwhelmed by it, simply because you are merely passive. As soon as you only become active the passive pain will be almost gone. III. IT IS OF IMMENSE IMPORTANCE TO HAVE A REMEDY FOR SOLITUDE. If Jesus Himself, in His perfect innocence, felt it — how much we? What shall we do? 1. Occupy solitude. Never allow sheer solitude for solitude's sake. Let there, for instance, be a distinct subject of thought. Solitude should always be preparatory to something which is to follow it — never an end, always a means. Jesus' solitudes appear to have been always preparatory to work. 2. People your solitudes with realized presences; bring in the communion of saints. It is not necessary that they be actually there. And that will make solitude more than safe — holy, helpful. 3. Far more than both, feel the close presence of a living Saviour. Christians do not attach sufficient weight to the actual presence of Christ as a brother. Most minds are occupied with the death of Christ, but it is the few who think as they ought of the actual, living, present Christ. Then, where is solitude? What the Father was to Jesus, that, Jesus, or rather the Father in Jesus, is to you. IV. LIFE WILL BE A VERY DIFFERENT THING TO YOU FROM THE TIME THAT YOU HAVE LEARNT THIS SECURITY OF SOLITUDE. 1. Your own room will then be another place to you. To go up there will not be to go up to be "alone." Rather, no other place upon this whole earth so sweetly full — no company so good, no fellowship so rich. It will not be dull, it will not be unwholesome, it will not be perilous, to be there. And it will be a very poor thing, in comparison, to go down from angels, and from saints, and from Jesus, to the common-places, the presences of life. 2. And yet, even in these common-places, the presences will be there. 3. And in things more testing still. If there be a desolating moment, it is when you are first called to do alone something which you have been wont to do with one with whom you can never do that thing again. The pleasant part is gone, for that dear one is gone. But those spirits are not gone — Jesus is not gone. It is a true word — you are "alone;" but it is truer still, "not alone." 4. And presently you will have to die. And it is a very solitary thing to die. Those who love you may go with you to the brink, but they cannot cross with you. I shudder to think of the solitariness of the feeling of the death of the man of the world. But you will not be "alone" — never so tended, never so encompassed with the loving, the lovely, and the true — "Alone, yet not alone, for the Father is with you." (J. Vaughan, 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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