City Church planned this series on waiting before we fully grasped how drastically our lives would change over this Lenten season. At this point, I often wonder what I am waiting for each day. Am I waiting for more bad news, or will there be something hopeful? Am I waiting for something as simple as a check-in text from friends I see regularly? Back in early March, when I said I would take this week’s blog in our five-part series on Jesus’ last days and write about how Jesus was stranded in the garden by his friends, I had no idea how relevant that term “stranding” would feel to our present reality.
Do you feel stranded right now? I definitely do. Stranded at home, stranded without hugs from friends I see regularly, stranded without regular corporate worship, stranded from neighborhood happy hours—I could go on and on. My college-age daughter is stranded in Houston unable to finish her sophomore year on campus; my other two kids are stranded from their regular schooling. Our youngest was about to wrap up his last year at our neighborhood elementary school,which was our family’s final year of fifteen there. He asked me if he would ever go back there as a student and would he get to have a fifth grade graduation. A fifth grade graduation. It seems so unimportant but it’s his reality of stranding and loss right now. And I know that all of us are grappling with different types of stranding and each person’s reality is real.
In these times, I am trying to concentrate on what we know. One thing we know is there is nothing that we go through that Jesus did not. So we know Jesus felt stranded. In fact, it’s a bit haunting to read how Matthew and Mark end their descriptions of Jesus’ arrest. Matthew writes, “Then all the disciples deserted him and fled” (Matt. 26:56b). and Luke says, “Then everyone deserted him and fled” (Luke 14:50). I can’t fathom watching my trusted friends flee. How much more stranded would I feel then than I do now? How deeply hurt and sad must Jesus have felt. As Claire Berger mentioned in last week’s service, we know that Jesus wept like we do. So even if he was not weeping at that moment, I would bet he was grieving as he watched his friends desert him.
The other thing we know is that our stranding is temporary. I do believe that our current physical stranding from each other will be temporary but more importantly, we are not stranded from ultimate peace. We know that one day, because of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice on the cross, we will experience comfort and communion like we cannot even imagine. This is a promise in which I can rest when I feel lonely and stranded. And I hope you can as well. We worship a God “who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Eph. 3:20). Thanks be to God for that, in this particular time and in all of time.
In this time of uncertainty, our feelings of being stranded are more heightened. If you are feeling more lonely or stranded right now, please reach out to us by sending an email to info@CityChurch.org. We would love to connect you with a small group, give you resources, and pray with you.