Title With Alone (John 16:31-33)
Contents
Once upon a time, I visited a place where the tombs of ancient royal families were reproduced. Since it is a tomb of the royal family, the inside of the tomb was decorated like a large house, and the dead were buried there. Inside the tomb, there was a living room and a food warehouse, just like the houses of the living, showing how much consideration was given to the dead.
What is surprising, however, is that there is not only one skeleton in the tomb, but many skeletons are also buried next to the tomb. There was a notice explaining this in detail, and it was said that this tomb was the tomb of the Shunjang. In other words, when the master died, the living slave was buried with him. It is to bury the living with the dead and continue to serve their masters after death.
It is truly inhuman and terrifying in the sight of God. This shunjang is also called a baejang, and it is said that when the master died and went on business, the living slaves were buried together. A slave sacrificed his blood and sweat for his master while he was alive. For the sake of the owner's comfortable life, he was treated like an animal and worked. However, when the master died, many servants were buried together in order to be loyal to the master in the world after death.
Naturally, living slaves would have rebelled so as not to be buried together, and if they rebelled, they would either be buried together after killing them, or they would be tied up with ropes and buried together alive. According to records, the highest number of ashes from Shunjang is 400 from the tomb of a king in the Shang Dynasty of China, but according to the records, 2,656 slaves were killed at one time. And in 1978, in Suzhou, Hubei Province, China, the remains of 21 young women who were killed in tombs 2,400 years ago were found.
The fear of life we feel in Soonjang's story is that we are trembling with a sense of disconnection from being alone. The reason life fears death is a sense of isolation from being alone. No matter how much the emperor, the feeling of being alone is terrifying. You don't know how many things life puts by your side so that you don't get trapped in the feeling of being alone. I am afraid of death because I feel the disconnection of being alone the most in the face of death.
The reason people still love their family especially is because they feel less disconnected from being alone because they have a family. A family is a community of life, whether happy or sad. Families are important objects that make you forget that you are alone because you share so much of your life. My family is also the only thing that confirms that I am not alone in my world. Therefore, it is said that the most painful thing in life is the loss of a family.
After all, the most important thing in life is to make you forget that you are alone. It makes people forget that they are alone when they have material things. Giving material makes many people willing to work and devote themselves to me. The power of material is because many objects make a relationship with me, so material has the power to give life freedom in a world of being alone. For example, the power of matter has the strongest power to maintain human relationships. (Administrative capital - that children are coming)
But you know, life is always alone. Don't think of being together temporarily. It is often said that when parents feel sad inside their lives, it is when their children grow up and have their own family. They lived in the consciousness that only their children were together, but one day it was sad because they revealed that they were not together. A certain butler who was marrying his daughter said this. He said he felt like he was losing his daughter. Life has no ability to be with anyone, and life cannot make promises to be with.
The only way life can never be alone is to find someone who can be with us forever. The Bible continues to teach us that God is with us. The Lord has promised not to leave us. If you look at the word “together with all of God’s promises” in the Bible, you can see it anew. Only God can promise in life that I will be with you forever.
Without God in life, the relationship of being together cannot be established. Life is a relationship of being together only in God. Even if a married couple lives, they can confess that they are together only in God. Even between parents and children, we can confess that we are together only in God. Who in life can promise to put God aside and be together is never a thing.
Jesus said. The hour is coming, when you are all scattered to your own place, and when you leave me alone, it is already here. But I am not alone; the Father is with me. Jesus became completely alone while carrying the cross in the world. They all left the Lord. But the Lord said that the Father is with me.
God's salvation is in the promise of being together. For life, spiritual death means leaving God. It means that God is with you in salvation. The promise that God gave to his people is a promise to be together. The promise God made to Jacob when he left his father's house was to be with you. It was a promise not to leave you. The promise of salvation that God made after bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt was also a promise to be with Israel.
The Lord has promised to be with us to the end of the world. He said he would never leave you. When the Lord promises to send the Holy Spirit, He also means that He promises to be with us. The Bible says I will not leave you orphans. When Jesus is with us, we are talking about Christian salvation. So the Lord made it clear that if I am in you and you are in me, ask whatever you want, and apart from me you can do nothing.
For this reason, believers must first set the standard of being with God when managing their lives. Anything that prevents you from being with God is evil. The devil interferes with our life with God. The world hates our life with God. Ultimately, being together means living with God. There is no life without God.
Now the disciples are together. But when they depart from the Lord and are scattered, each of you will be scattered to your own place. Life is about scattering wherever you are when you leave the Lord. Anyone who leaves the Lord is alone. Psalm 51:2 “Remember your father Abraham and Sarah who gave birth to you, and when Abraham was single, I called him and blessed him, and made him multiply.”
The important thing here is that Abraham was obviously a rich man with many people. There were so many people around him. However, God expressed Abraham as a god of blood and blood. Before God called Abraham, he also said that he was a single god of blood and blood. This is not only Abraham, but anyone who lives a life without God.