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Alone Text:
John 19:25-27 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
The first word from the cross transforms the cross into the altar of our great high priest: “Father, forgive them.” The second word transformed Calvary to be the entry way and open door into heaven: “Today you will be with me in paradise.” This third word, however, stays right here with us on earth. It was probably spoken quietly. The head crowned with thorns was bowed down to the earth where we must live. The feverish eyes of our Lord have searched the crowd for some familiar face. All except one are women. For a moment his eyes rest on them and here, at the very center of the world's history, the Son of God speaks once more as also the Son of Mary. Suspended in agony between heaven and earth he remembers his mother, Mary of Nazareth. He bends his head down to her and says, "Woman, behold your son!" And to the disciple John he says, "Behold, your mother!"
He had only a matter of minutes remaining, but Mary and John still had a matter of years that lay ahead of them. Standing at the gate where the shadows end, before he disappears through its portal, he turns for a moment to call back to two that were still only a little way down that road called life. Life has a way of going on even beyond its crosses and its Calvaries. As the words from that cross were the last echo of the lonely walking of God in the ways of men, so he knew the loneliness of crowds, the calling in the night for the companionship of heaven, the dark and listening hours of garden and hill. It will be good to know in heaven that his mother will not be alone on earth.
This Word calls to mind the real character of our greatest fears: the fear of being alone. From the first time as a child wandering the aisles of the busy department store trying to see through tears mom who seemed to have just suddenly disappeared, to the child who is made truly alone as an orphan, through the day of leaving home for college, military service or that first job, through the slow-motion nightmare of funeral arrangements and ceremonies for a loved one who, up until then, had always been there for you, to the loneliness of a hospital room or a nursing home, it is a fearful thing, being alone.
It is a strange loneliness that moves in the shadow of unreason and of death. We utter words to hide and build walls to separate and still wonder at the fear and loneliness even when it is of our own making.
Jesus' mother was not alone, of course. She stood there with her relative, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. And there were others. Yet, have you ever heard the deafening silence in the hospital room after the life-support systems have been turned off and the family watches the monitor tracking the slowing heartbeat, the shallowing breath, waiting and watching in utter silence? Or in another context, when it is not physical death, but the death of anger and hatred—the silence and sense of loneliness when co-workers or family members or a spouse just turn you off, ignore you.... One can be very much alone even when surrounded by others.
In her sorrow, how could Mary's thoughts not have gone back to that silent and holy night when she first held her child in her arms, or his childhood when he grew in grace and wisdom before God and man? Maybe she remembered Simeon's dark and ominous words: "Yes and a sword shall pierce through your own soul also." Only now she began to understand what he meant.
In this third word from the cross our Savior reaches down into the small and ordinary things of our lives. If he never had said these words we probably never would have missed them. And yet there it is. In a flash we see the total love of God, for it reaches down and away into all the lonely problems of life and living. The Christian faith is not to be only one of great churches, chanting choirs, and soaring cathedrals. It is a conviction held in the home and the kitchen, in the silent, private and little things of life, too.
On the cross our Savior remembered his mother. Just so he remembers today the businessman who brings a problem to him, the housewife who is worried and anxious, the child who holds up a broken finger. His love storms the gates to heaven and pours itself into every corner of life.
Here is our great and lasting comfort. We may have come here today worried or anxious about many things. We may have a problem that does not appear important to the world. We may be worrying about something that affects us alone. But all of these by the power of the cross we can bring to him who on Calvary remembered his mother. He will remember us too—forever.
For who was truly alone in this scene around the cross? Was it not the Savior himself? For no one else could do what he was sent to do. No one else could bear what he was sent to bear. He had to do it alone. He had to die alone. Oh, his mother was with him there, as far as that could go, and as little as she could do for him. And his Father was there also, at the beginning as he said, “Father, forgive them,” and at the end as he said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” But it was in the middle of the whole thing, from the sixth to the ninth hour, from 12 noon to 3 pm, in the eerie darkness when even the creation and the blazing sun could no longer look upon what was happening there, and that moment when he was abandoned even by his Father, saying, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” that he became the lonely one, the sinner, the suffering servant bearing our iniquities and suffering the punishment that was to be ours: the hell of being utterly forsaken of God. His case was hopeless at that moment. But it was so that we might find hope and reconciliation with God and with one another, for it was our sins that put him there. And because he was there—for us—we can now know forgiveness.
Since the cross, there is a fellowship so close that anyone of us can with a word ask him—and whole flights of angels—to join us on the way. There is a legend that in the years after Calvary, Mary would often kneel alone on the summit of the hill in which were still three holes and the marks of an earthquake and below which were still an empty grave and a broken door. That door is still open. For it is the door of resurrection, the door of eternal hope, the door of fellowship with the God who loved the world so much that he sent his only Son, that he allowed this whole event to take place.
The sword that pierced Mary's soul that day must penetrate ours as well. It is that double-edged sword of the Word that both kills and restores to life. As we contemplate the tragedy of the Savior's death on the cross we realize that it was for my sins that he suffered and died. But repentance is not despair alone. For, as with his mother and John, our Lord gives us to one another for safekeeping, the family of faith. For, with them, faith has come to know also the triumph of resurrection, of forgiveness, hope and love. Because of the resurrection of her Son, Mary is remembered to this day not as the lonely, weeping mother of a crucified man, but as the Mother of God who all generations will call blessed. Because of the resurrection of our Lord, those who put their faith in him will be remembered not as nameless souls overwhelmed by the tragedies of life, but as sons and daughters of the King, fellow heirs of the kingdom of heaven. And the important thing is that we will be remembered, if not by anyone else, by God himself. At this moment, then, let us bring all our fears and sorrows and leave them here, where, alone, we have found consolation, forgiveness, hope and life. ____________________
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