Loneliness and Christ

As I was driving back to Fort Wayne from Northville, where Jonny, Johnny, Nathan, Cory, and I had lunch, I was hit by this huge wave of loneliness and sadness. It's been over a month since I last visited my AIV friends in Ann Arbor, and I've gotten kind of used to the quiet, solitary working life in Fort Wayne. I didn't realize how much I missed late night talks, impromptu prayer sessions, hugging it out with brothers, and having fun, silly conversations with people. Not only did I really get that awesome, familiar sense of community in my short time in Ann Arbor these last few days, my heart was also riled up to God's mission, as the excitement, passion, and burden for the Church and the lost came flooding back to me as I participated in AIV events and talked about the chapter with friends.

The thing is, I haven't really been feeling too lonely in my last few weeks at Fort Wayne. So why was I feeling it so strongly all of a sudden? This is what I realized - Loneliness is most keenly felt after leaving intimate fellowship and community of any kind. I think anyone who has gone through any kind of break up or has left a great, tight community (especially of believers) knows that deep sense of loneliness that I'm talking about - and the closer and more intimate the community or relationship, the deeper the sense of loneliness.

After thinking about it for a little bit, it hit me that in his incarnation and eventual taking on of our sins, Jesus voluntarily chose to leave the intimate community and fellowship of the Trinity and take on humanity. I'm no real expert on all this Trinitarian theology stuff, but from what I know, the community and the fellowship between Christ and the other two members of the Trinity wasn't as infinitely intimate and infinitely perfect while Christ was on earth as it was before the incarnation. Not only that, when we talk about and imagine the suffering of Jesus on the cross, we almost always think about the physical suffering that Jesus experienced, not really being able to describe the spiritual suffering of Christ. In that passion accounts in the gospel, outside of Jesus saying he was thirsty while on the cross, the writers never record Jesus complaining about any of the physical suffering that he endured. Rather, the only cry of pain that Jesus makes is recorded in Matthew 27:46 - "And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" The overwhelming pain of loneliness that Jesus experienced as he took on the sins of the world, when the infinitely intimate fellowship of the Trinity was broken, is absolutely unfathomable for us mortals. As I mentioned before, the intensity of the pain of loneliness and broken relationship is magnified by the intimacy of the fellowship in the relationship, which means that the  infinitely eternal, intimate, and perfect fellowship of the Trinity points to an infinitely painful separation and break of fellowship. For any of you that could relate to that pain I mentioned earlier (either through a breakup or a move of some sort), Jesus experienced that pain times infinity - suffering that we cannot even begin to understand.

Jesus knows what it feels like to be lonely, and he endured all that suffering so that I can come in relationship with Him. And I'm grateful for that.

"Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

- Hebrews 4:14-16

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