There are few more instructive or more touching things in the life of our
Lord Jesus Christ than His evident appreciation of human sympathy. Whether
we observe Him at the marriage feast, or in the fishing-boat, or on the
Mount of Olives, or when spending a time apart with His disciples, or in
the Garden of His Agony, this appreciation expresses itself quite
naturally and consistently. The Son of Man, though one with the Father,
yet found joy and comfort in the society of men. What we call
"companionship" had real charms for Him. It helped to draw Him out to the
hungerings and thirstings of men; it assisted in revealing to Him the
facts of human sin, and the needs of the human soul. Thus it enabled Him
more perfectly to be our living example, as well as the propitiation for
our sins.
And as He valued the consolations arising from human friendship and love,
so also He had to suffer the loss of them, in order that He might carry
out His great work for God and man. For His work's sake, His soul was
required to pass through the agony of losing every human consolation. Many
were His moments of bitterness. The world proved itself to be, what it
still remains, a cold-hearted affair; His own, to whom He came, received
Him not. But the bitterest sorrow which can come to a leader was added to
His cup, when He witnessed the failure of His trusted disciples in the
hour of trial, and when He realised that their unfaithfulness was towards
Himself as a person, as well as to the great mission to which He had
consecrated both Himself and them.
Now, when we are called upon to suffer in the same way, may we not be
brought into very intimate fellowship with Jesus? Shall we complain
because the servant is not above his Lord? Shall we doubt His love, and
care, and power, because He does not always shield us from that same blast
of loneliness which swept over His own soul in the Garden, when for the
second, aye, and for the third time, He found His three disciples asleep?