Each of us will experience the winters of life. A time when we are lonely, misunderstood, rejected because of choices or mistakes we have made, weak or weary and the world we live in seems to be so cold and gray.
Who will be there when the winter comes?
I just returned last week from seeing my dad in a nursing home in the mid-west. He is in the last winter of his life and dying of cancer. It is sad to find that almost no one spends time with him. No one discusses with him the options he has in his final days. His world is reduced to about eighty square feet. I too am in a winter season myself because of my dad’s time of winter. I look around to see who is by his side caring for him and I do not find most of his family or friends. It is not because they are far away, it is because they won’t take the time for one reason or another.
Who will be there when the winter comes?
In this world when you lose your usefulness, you are placed on permanent ignore by most. Your family and friends had plenty of time for you when you had something they wanted, a service you could provide or when you were standing in their corner with them, but change in a way that is not popular, get sick, go broke, get into trouble, fall in love, remarry, get divorced, retire, move away, get demoted or fired, dress differently, or even receive a bad grade on your report card, and where are they now?
Who will be there when the winter comes?
In our Scriptures this morning we find Jesus in the final winter of His earthly life. Where are all of His disciples? Where is His family? Where are all of His friends? Most of them have deserted Him for one reason or another. I am sure they made all kinds of excuses why they couldn’t be by His side. Maybe they said that they had other responsibilities that took precedence. Or they could have said that it would cost them something that they were not willing to lose. They might have been worried what other people would say about them. Who knows, they may even have rationalized, that someone has to carry on what Jesus started, and how could they do that if they themselves were arrested and crucified. Loyalty is a major tenet of Christianity, so who do we find still loyal to Jesus in His final winter? We find His mother, His Aunt Salome, Mary the wife of Clopas, Mary Magalene, and the Apostle John all at Calvary. What made them different from all the ones that were not there? True love, the love of Jesus and the love from Jesus! Jesus told His mother that she would be losing a son, but at the same time she was gaining one. He told John that he would be losing a Rabbi, but he was gaining another mother. This winter was not just about losing, it was also about gaining.
Who will be there when the winter comes?
I find many times as I visit the sick and the hurting, they are not worried so much about themselves or their circumstance as they are about how it will affect others. You see, that is the way of Jesus, when winter comes, we need to be there for the ones we love, for the ones that have been there for us in the past, for the ones that have no one else in their time of winter. Remember the second and equally important Great Commandment; “love your neighbor as yourself.”
Who will be there when the winter comes?
