Don’t abandon me!

Auntie Nellie was a lovely old lady who was shut in because of age and fragile health. I used to visit and pray with her. Once, looking at me with a hint of a tear in her eyes she said “Simon, I love our chats. I’d rather have cancer than be left alone.”

That’s not a shocking statement for many people as we discover how hard it is to self isolate. No wonder so many break the rules because without companionship we lose a bit of our humanity.

At Ilford High Road Baptist Church we will be running a Wellness Drop In and free remembrance services after the lockdown because at the heart of our faith, Jesus experienced loneliness at his greatest moment of need. When Jesus announced to his disciples that he would be tried, beaten and crucified, and rise from the grave, all of them declared their loyalty. But when Jesus was arrested all his friends ran off. Hundreds of years before this prophets foretold how the Messiah would die:

“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

As Jesus was dying on the cross, the slowest painful death Roman law could devise, he cried out “My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?”

Jesus the Messiah suffered the darkest loneliness at his moment of greatest need - even silence from his heavenly Father. We have comfort to know that when we call to him in our loneliness and separation from loved ones, he understands perfectly.