Rob Spykstra
Today, many of us will be doing something for the first time ever . . . celebrating Easter alone. I don’t mean totally alone — I, like you, will have my immediate family — but yet isolated and away from my church family in whom I am connected by something deeper than blood . . . Christ’s blood.
Alone.
Loneliness, and the fear of being alone, is an inevitable reality of human existence. No one really knows me, not even my wife of 32 years. Poet Robert Hass writes,
“. . . and one day, running at sunset, the woman says to the man,
I woke up feeling so sad this morning because I realized
that you could not, so much as I love you,
dear heart, cure my loneliness.“
Even the best and most intimate of relationships have their limits.
Alone.
It is this loneliness that Jesus came to cure. He did so by becoming lonely for us. We hear His profound loneliness when on the cross He cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Answer? Our sins. Our sins created an unimaginable gulf between the Father and the Son. He became profoundly lonely to heal our loneliness and make possible again, intimacy with the Father.
Today, Resurrection Sunday, we celebrate, “no longer alone; no longer isolated by my sin.” The resurrection declares there is hope for all those who are isolated and alone. Christ’s resurrection erases “until death do you part” from all who are joined to him. The resurrection declares his offer of unwavering, eternal fidelity to all who trust in his work on the cross.
Christ takes residence in our hearts. Paul anticipated that this might seem too good to be true so he writes, “Do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?” (2 Cor. 13:5) The resurrection underscores his promise, “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Heb. 13:5).
So use today’s isolation, meditate on the separation, and celebrate the declaration of the resurrection that you are not alone and will never be alone.
“Christ in you, the hope of glory.” ~ Colossians 1:27
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