You may have had a loved one wrong you or lie about you sometime, and you were hurt. You may have had someone close to you pass away, and that caring heart is no longer there to be your confidant. Perhaps a family member or friend didn’t have the courage to stand by you when others attacked or slandered you. Painful as it was, it’s nothing when compared to what the Savior experienced nearly 2000 years ago. Existing as a man on this earth for 33 years, never sinning, he was ultimately disowned and scourged by his own people. Then, because of his great love for you and all mankind, Christ took upon himself all sins that ever had been committed or ever would be committed by mankind. 2 Corinthians 5:21 reads, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Even more heartbreaking, however, than the weight of mankind’s sin, and rejection by those he had come to save, was the face that turned away. Since before time, Jesus Christ had shared perfect communion with God the Father such as we cannot comprehend. Now, because the Father could not look at the awful burden of sin borne by the Son, that perfect unity between Father and Son was broken. The dying Christ cried out in Matthew 27:46, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” An isolation and grief we cannot fathom was felt by the Savior that day. He was alone as he faced this awful death.
Two thoughts stand out: First, know that when you feel alone, Jesus Christ understands. He knows a deeper alone than you can realize. Second, Jesus Christ chose that separation from his Father because he loved you, and that’s a deeper love than you can ever grasp.
Paul’s prayer for the Ephesians was that they would, “Have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge”(Ephesians 3:18-19).
In Romans 8:35-39, Paul reminds us, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? . . . No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”