Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. (John 16:32)
Two thousand years later, we tend to associate Holy Week with togetherness — with gatherings on Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and maybe more. But the first Holy Week was the loneliest week of all for Jesus.
To be sure, there were plenty of people around in the crowded city — holding palm branches, huddled around the bread and wine, fighting in the garden, shouting “Crucify him!” — but walking in the midst of it all was a man soon to be utterly alone. The night he was betrayed, he told his closest friends it would be so:
You will all fall away because of me this night. For it is written, “I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep of the flock will be scattered.” (Matthew 26:31)
