<p>8:9- see on Mt. 27:5.</p>
<p><i>And they, when they heard it, went out one by one, beginning from the eldest, to the last; and Jesus was left alone with the woman, with her still standing in the middle</i>- It can be no coincidence that the Lord Jesus is described as being &ldquo;left alone&rdquo; only twice in the New Testament, and they are both within a few verses of each other: &ldquo;They which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest, even unto the last: and Jesus was <i>left alone</i>, and the woman standing in the midst&rdquo; (Jn. 8:9)... &ldquo;Then said Jesus unto them, When ye have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am he, and that I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me, I speak these things. And he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not <i>left me alone</i>; for I do always those things that please him&rdquo; (Jn. 8:28,29). He was not alone because the Father confirmed Him in the judgments He made (Jn. 8:16). What is the meaning of this connection? As the peerless Son of God stood before the repentant sinner, with all others convicted by their consciences to one by one slink away from His presence, He was left alone with His perfect Father as well as the repentant woman. Jesus saw in that scene a prefiguring of His death on the cross. There, lifted up from the earth, He was left alone with the Father, a repentant sinner the thief, and again, one by one, the condemning onlookers smote their breasts in conviction of their sin and walked away. The cross was &ldquo;the judgment of this world&rdquo; (Jn. 12:31). There men and women are convicted of their sin and either walk away, or take the place of the humbled woman or desperately repentant thief. This alone should impart an urgency and intensity to our memorial services, when through bread and wine we come as it were before Him there once again, facing up to the piercing reality of our situation as sinners kneeling before the crucified Son of God. One aspect of the loneliness of the cross was that simply the Lord&rsquo;s righteousness set Himself apart from humanity- and He so intensely felt it: &ldquo;Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me&rdquo; (Jn. 16:32). Yet it was the loneliness which drew Him to the Father. For the isolated believer, the loneliness of being in some sense more righteous living that e.g. your alcoholic husband, your atheist daughter, the materialistic women at work...is a burden hard to live with. Yet in this, we are sharing something of the cross of our Lord. And if we suffer with Him, we shall also share in the life eternal which He was given. Being &ldquo;left alone&rdquo; with the Father and your humbled, repentant brethren is a sharing in the cross of the Son of God. This is the gripping logic, the promise of ultimate hope, which is bound up with the sense of spiritual loneliness which is in some ways inevitably part of the believing life.</p>