Bjornsen, the great Norwegian poet, who received the Nobel
Prize for literature was once asked what incident in his life gave
him the most pleasure. He replied that is was an occasion when his
house was attacked and his windows broken. This sounds slightly
odd and paradoxical, but before you jump to conclusions about his
sanity listen to the details concerning this painful incident which
brought him pleasure. Bjornsen had aroused the anger of the
Storthing, which was the Norwegian Parliament, over some issue,
and certain members of that body were so aggravated that they
went to his home and smashed his windows. Having expressed their
contempt for Bjornsen, they then marched away singing the
Norwegian National Anthem, "Yes, we love this land of ours."
Bjornsen chuckled to himself in spite of the damage, because he
was the author of the National Anthem. They could smash his
windows, but they had to sing his song. The paradox is double, for
not only did Bjornsen get pleasure out of this persecution, because
the persecutors sang his song, but because the persecutors
expressed their pleasure by singing the song of the one they had just
persecuted. Here is a good example of the saying that truth is
stranger than fiction. The facts of history and experience
demonstrate over and over again that paradox is a part of the
reality of life. That is why we find so many paradoxes in the Bible.
The title of my message is a paradox, for to say, alone, yet not
alone seems to contradict itself. How can two opposites be true?
How can one be alone and yet not alone at the same time? This is
only one of several paradoxes of Jesus in the closing two verses of
chapter 16. He also says His disciples are to have peace in
tribulation. They are to be of good cheer in spite of His prediction
that they will forsake Him and suffer. Then He tops it off with a
proclamation of victory when in a matter of hours he was going to
be nailed to the cross in apparent defeat. This passage is a paradise
for those pursuing paradoxes. Practically everything Jesus says
here sounds like a contradiction, but each is a profound truth that
can be experienced in life. We are going to take just one of these
paradoxes for our study now. Jesus makes the statement of being
alone, and yet not alone, and this opens to us two channels for
exploration concerning the subject of loneliness. First let's
consider-
I. THE REALITY OF LONELINESS.
Jesus knew what it was to be left alone. He knew the feeling of
being forsaken by all, including those He most loved. He is about to
go into the garden of Gethsemane and face the most agonizing inner
struggle of His life, and He will have to do it alone. His disciples
will be careless and indifferent, and they will sleep rather than
watch with Him. It is likely that no one has ever experienced the
depth of loneliness like Jesus did. Alexander Maclaren does not
hesitate to say, "Jesus was the loneliness man that ever lived... He
knew the pain of unappreciated aims, unaccepted love, unbelieved
teachings, a heart thrown back upon itself." Jesus spent much of
His public ministry in the midst of crowds, and yet He was alone,
for not only His foes, but His family and friends misunderstood
Him, and could not share His deepest thoughts and goals. Jesus
experienced to the fullest the reality of loneliness.
In a Peanuts cartoon, Linus is admitting that he is afraid to go
into the public library. His friend Charlie Brown is trying to
comfort him by explaining that everybody feels lonely in some place
or another. When Linus asks, "What is your place?" Charlie
Brown replies, "Earth." In another cartoon Charlie is asked,
"What are you going to be when you grow up?" He replies,
"Lonely." Studies in many fields show that Charlie Brown has a
vast crowd with him in the same boat, for earth seems to be the
place where the majority of people are lonely. It is one of the great
paradoxes of our world that loneliness is a major problem side by
side with the problem of population explosion. No number of
people can change the fact which Amiel writes of in his journal. "In
all the chief matters of life we are alone: We dream alone, we suffer
alone, we die alone."
This was the reality experienced by Jesus. He bore His ideals
and His suffering alone, and upon the cross it was alone that He
died. So it is with all of us. However much we rub elbows with the
crowds, we are still essentially Robinson Crusoes on the lonely
island of self. You can be perfectly healthy, and have a well
rounded personality like Adam and Jesus, and still be very lonely,
for it is normal to be lonely. Matthew Arnold wrote-
Yes, in the sea of life exiled,
With echoing straits between us thrown,
Dotting the shoreless, watery wild,
We moral millions live alone.
Like all the atoms of the universe, no two of which touch each
other, so are we as persons. As close as we are crammed together in
large cities, we are yet islands with vast spaces between, and many
cry out like the Ancient Mariner,
Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.
Billy Graham said that loneliness plagues more people today
than any other single problem. Many doctors say it is the major
malady of our time. One doctor went so far as to say, "Ninety-nine
out of a hundred individuals is lonely. The one who says he isn't
probably is." A poet put it-
Way down deep within our hearts
Everybody's lonesome;
Far within their secret parts
Everybody's lonesome;
Makes no difference how they smile
How they live or what their style;
Once in a little while
Everybody's lonesome.
This may be too strong, but if we consider the loneliness that comes
at different stages along the path of life, it is certainly close to the
truth to say that everyone at some time is lonely. We all know of
the child's longing for love and security, and how they can find
comfort in a doll, teddy bear, or blanket when they are left alone.
But there is no substitute for real persons who can give love and
affection in return. A child who is not given this love can become
insecure and lonely for the rest of life. No parent wants to banish
their child to a lonely island, but they accomplish the same sad end
by neglect and lack of affection.
What is surprising is that the supposedly independent carefree
teenager needs attention as much, if not more, than a child. Studies
indicate that the liability to loneliness is at its peak in adolescence.
The teenager fears loneliness like the plague, and yet they are
constantly struggling with it. You asked why they are so willing to
go along with the crowd, and do even the most foolish and
destructive things? It is because they cannot stand to be alone, to
be left out, and to be different. The teenager lives constantly in the
fear that he or she is different and possibly not normal. They worry
about whether or not they are developing and maturing as they
ought. They will do just about anything to demonstrate that they
are. In their desperate attempt to be mature they often do what is
very immature. They wrestle with their sins and inner thoughts
about the future all alone, and they feel that no one really
understands them. At no time in life does one need to sense love
and concern more.
The facts indicate that both parents and society, as a whole, are
too busy trying to escape their own loneliness to give youth what
they need to come through this crisis period. Parents are like the
disciples of Jesus. They walked with Him along the smooth path,
but when the road got rough they fled, and they left Him alone. So
parents enjoy the years of innocence with their children, but tend
for forsake them in the turmoil of the teen years when they wrestle
with the forces of temptation on every side. Thank God, the
teenager who knows Christ has the company of one who
understands.
The battle with the reality of loneliness goes on even after the
period of adolescence, however, and, in fact, never ends. Thomas
Wolfe, the American novelist, once thought that only he and a few
others experienced loneliness, but after some study he wrote, "The
whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness,
far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself
and to a few other solitary men, is the central and inevitable fact of
human existence. As youth looks ahead in fear, those who have
reached middle age look back in frustration. They feel lonely
because of what might have been, but isn't. They could have done
this or that, and now it is too late, and they regret it. Ideals have
been unattained, and dreams unfulfilled.
Rupert Brooke was leaving Liverpool and he felt lonely for
everyone seemed to have somebody on the dock waving goodbye.
He went and found a boy who was dirty but unoccupied by the
name of William, and he paid him to wave. When the ship pulled
out he shouted goodbye William, and as the vessel slid away the last
object to be seen was a small boy faithfully waving his
handkerchief. Such is the measure men will go to in order to hide
the reality of loneliness.
Older people feel it ever more intensely. Life has passed, and
they feel they have been set aside on the shelf. They fear to face the
short future alone without family and friends. The point of all this
is that loneliness is a reality, and it is a reality that Jesus
experienced that he might know and understand a basic problem
that all people experience, and more important, that He might
provide a remedy. That is our next point.
II. THE REMEDY FOR LONELINESS.
Jesus was left alone, and yet He says He was not alone, for the
Father is with me. The ultimate remedy for loneliness is to be
aware of the presence of God. All other remedies give moderate
and temporary relief, but this alone will insure one of never being
alone however lonely they might be. Only those who practice the
presence of God can go through every experience and stage of life
alone, and yet not be alone.
The Apostle Paul knew what it was to be alone, yet not alone. He
wrote in II Tim. 4:16-17, "At my first defense no one took my part;
all deserted me....but the Lord stood by me and gave me strength to
proclaim the Word fully, that all the Gentiles might hear it." All
deserted him, and yet he was not alone and defenseless, for the Lord
was by his side. Paul, like us, never saw Jesus in the flesh while He
walked this earth, but he claimed the promise of Christ to be with
him always. Maltbie Babcock expressed Paul's feelings-
I need not journey far
This dearest friend to see.
Companionship is always mine,
He makes His home with me.
I envy not the Twelve;
Nearer to me is He;
The life He once lived here on earth
He lives again in me.
This can be the experience of all who have opened their hearts to
Christ. The Christian has this remedy for loneliness, for he has the
only friend who can fully understand him, and who is also ever
present. This does not mean that Christians are never lonely, for
they are still social creatures made for fellowship and
companionship with other people, and when this is lacking they will
be lonely, even as Jesus was. The Christian, however, no matter
how lonely, is never alone, for God is present, and this can make the
difference between defeat and victory.
Christina Forsyth, who was called the loneliest woman in Africa
lived for 30 years alone in a native village seeking to win the people
to Christ. She could say, "I am never alone." She was lonely, but
not alone. This paradox is repeated over and over in countless lives
through the centuries. Men and woman have experienced the full
force of the reality of loneliness, yet, because they have also
experienced the remedy in the presence of God, they were alone, yet
not alone. Being active in the service of others has been the way
many Christians have overcome the waste of loneliness. It is not
wasted when you use it to get motivated in service. The world is full
of need, and much of it is being met everyday by people who are lonely,
but who are using their loneliness to be a blessing to other.
There are 40 people who are specific people healed in the New
Testament, and 34 of them were brought to Christ by friends. Only
6 came on their own. This is a marvelous witness to the power of
service, for so much that happens in this world is because of people
who care enough to help others find God's best.
Bernard Shaw in his St. Joan has Joan of Arc say as she is led
away to the stake to be burned, "Yes, I am alone on earth. I have
always been alone...But do not think you can frighten me by telling
me that I am alone....It is better to be alone with God: His
friendship will not fail me, nor His counsel, nor His love. In His
strength I will dare, and dare and dare until I die." She went
through great loneliness, but she did not go through it alone.
Once having discovered this ultimate remedy for loneliness, the
Christian who follows the leading of the Lord soon learns to make
an asset of his experience of aloneness. Those who have not yet
opened their heart to the presence of Christ, but seek to solve their
problem of loneliness by self-prescribed remedies often try and
follow the "Isn't this fun," method. They go here and there, and
everywhere joining in whatever the action. They try to impress
themselves and others that life is really a ball. They are afraid to
stop because they fear to be alone. The Christian should be one
who learns to enjoy being alone. A famous philosopher felt that the
real test of one's faith is in what he does with his solitude.
One can by a wise use of solitude make more friends of eternal
benefit than in any other way. I have a whole host of godly friends
who counsel me, guide me, inspire me, and fill me with greater
devotion to Christ. I have never even met them. The list begins
with Moses and includes Matthew, Peter, Paul, and John, and
thousands more living and dead. No one has a richer heritage than
the Christian, and no one can find greater riches and more friends
through reading than can the Christian. In fact, the Christian can
make the paradox even greater, and say as one did, "Never less
alone than when alone." Every Christian can say, "Alone, yet not
alone." But only the Christian who is a seeking, praying, and
reading Christian can say, "Never less alone than when alone." Not
only is God present to the seeking Christian, but so are hosts of His
chosen servants who can guide us to a greater fulfillment of His
will.
The Christian is one who must find value and meaning in all of
the realities of life, and that includes the reality of loneliness. Jesus
was lonely, but He did not waste it. He used it to wrestle before
God in prayer, and He gained a victory that enabled Him to go to
the cross with both peace and joy. Never was so much value gained
for so many by a wise use of solitude. Everyone of us is obligated to
follow Christ, and use our solitude for the glory of God and the
good of man. We need to stop wasting our loneliness, and begin
dedicating to God. There is no total escape from loneliness, for it is
a part of the reality of a fallen world. Jesus could not escape it
either. But in His loneliness he expressed His love, and this is what
He will guide us to do if we claim His presence in our loneliness.
Alone, yet not alone am I,
Though in this solitude so drear;
I feel my Savior always nigh,
He comes the weary hour to cheer;
I am with Him, and He with me
Even here alone I cannot be.
Author unknown
Albert Einstein was not a Christian, but he had something to
teach Christians. He wrote, "I have never belonged wholeheartedly
to country or state, to my circle of friends, or even to my own
family. Such isolation is sometimes bitter, but I do not regret being
cut off from the understanding and sympathy of other men. I lose
something by it, to be sure, but I am compensated for it in being
rendered independent of the customs, opinions, and prejudices of
others, and I am not tempted to rest my peace of mind on such
shifting foundations." Einstein found values in his loneliness, and
he used his solitude to fulfill the goals to which he dedicated his life.
How much more ought Christians to say with Wordsworth, "I must
be, else sinning greatly, a dedicated saint." A Christian as
dedicated to Christ as an Einstein was to math will be able to face
the reality of loneliness with a remedy for loneliness, and be alone,
yet not alone.
