"Then all the disciples forsook Him, and fled.
" –Matt.
26:56
What a sad contrast does this picture present to the one we
have just been viewing--"Jesus, our fellow-sufferer." His time of
suffering has now come, but, lo! "all His disciples have forsaken Him, and
fled." Is there nothing, my soul, in this affecting and significant fact from
which you may gather much that is instructive and consolatory concerning your
own condition? We have been contemplating the sympathy of Jesus with His
afflicted saints. And oh, what heart can conceive, or imagery portray, the
reality, humanity, and tenderness of that sympathy! In all our afflictions He is
afflicted, in all our trials He is tried, in all our persecutions He is
persecuted, in all our temptations He is tempted. My soul! there is no sympathy
among men, saints, or angels, that can compare with Christ's. And yet how
thankful should you be for the smallest measure of human sympathy given you. It
may have been, and doubtless was, but as a drop in comparison of the
ocean-fullness of Christ's; nevertheless, that drop has proved inexpressibly and
immeasurably soothing, sweetening many a bitter trial, gilding many a cloud, and
lighting the pressure of many a burden. For this uplift your praiseful heart to
God.
But even this drop of 'creature sympathy' afforded you was
denied your suffering Lord. How earnestly and touchingly did He ask it! "Stay
here and watch with me, while I go yonder and pray." And when from the scene
of His conflict and anguish He returned, sobbing and gory, to bury His grief in
their compassion and love--lo! He found them sleeping! How gentle, yet how
searching, His rebuke--"Could you not watch with me one hour?" What
condition in the experience of the saints does this page of our Lord's history
meet? It meets a sad and painful one--one which could only thus be met--the lack
of human sympathy.
You are, perhaps, in a condition which needs the sympathy of a
kind and loving spirit, and your sad and clinging heart yearns for it. But, as
in the case of your sorrowing Lord, it slumbers at the moment that you most
needed its wakeful, watchful expression. And yet its very absence may prove your
richest soothing, by bringing you into a closer experience of the sympathy of
Jesus. Having Himself felt its need and its lack, He is all the more fitted, as
your fellow-sufferer, to sympathize with, and supply your present need.
You are, perhaps, suffering from MISPLACED AND WOUNDED
AFFECTION. You have naturally allowed the fibers of your heart to entwine
around some object of its warm and clinging love; but chilled affection, or the
whisper of envy, or the venomed tooth of slander, has wrenched those fibers from
their stem, and trailed them, torn and bleeding, in the dust. How like Jesus now
you are, of whose loved disciples it is recorded, "They all forsook Him, and
fled."
Or, you are suffering from BETRAYED AND DISAPPOINTED
CONFIDENCE. One you thought a friend, tender and true, has deserted you; a
judgment upon whose guidance you leaned has misled you; a source upon whose
supplies you depended has failed you; a confidence in which you too implicitly
reposed has betrayed you; and thus you are learning the lesson Jesus learned
when, "all His disciples forsook Him, and fled."
Cheer up, my soul! there is One who has promised never to leave
you. When father and mother, husband and wife, lover and friend, forsake you,
the Lord will take you up. He who was deserted by friends and followers, will
cling to you in prosperity and in adversity, in weal and in woe, with
unfaltering fidelity and unchanging love; and though all forsake you, yet will
He not in life, in death, and through eternity. How great and precious the
divine promise--"They may forget, yet I will not." "Jesus Christ, the same
yesterday, today, and forever." Precious Jesus! though all forsake me, as all
forsook You; yet YOU will never leave me, nor forsake
me!
6 Fertilize my soul:
All people can forget about me, but not Jesus... Greetings for You dear Amrita.
What a promise...he will never leave us or forsake us.....blessings friend
Thank you for sharing this. Hugs to you.
Never will he leave nor forsake us.
In my two favorite churches, one in Haugesund and the other in Sauda, the altar pieces are paintings of Jesus in Gethsemane.
The one in my birth town depicts how an angel came and dried the forehead of Jesus as he were fighting his most bitter struggle for our sake. left by everybody, but comforted by an angel.
Thanks to Jesus fighting every lonesome battle for us, we will never be left alone.
Let us rest in that.
JESUS experienced everything for us, so that we would NEVER be alone ... amen to the other comments and blessings on you Amrita!
"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and to the ages to come" - these were my father's last words. It give us all great comfort of the years since.
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