Not Alone - Pastor Bradley Peters
Loneliness sets the picture with a school kid in the cafeteria, tray in hand, milk carton there, waiting and hoping somebody will sit down. That feeling is sad for a day and heavier after a week, and it grows deeper as life goes on. The child may still have a home to run back to, a place where the skinned knee makes him say, “Daddy, I wanna just go home.” But adolescence starts pulling a person out of that comfortable home, into the place Father Rolheiser calls essential discipleship, where identity is being built and the question becomes, who am I supposed to be?
Essential discipleship names that stage where a person is no longer content simply to belong where he was born. Work, friends, dating, church trips, a truck, a place, a future, all of it starts to become part of the search for a new home. Acts chapter nine then gives a picture of someone who has moved beyond that search into a life given away. Tabitha, also called Dorcas, lives so deeply in her community that when she dies, the widows gather around Peter crying and holding up the robes and clothing she had made for them.
Dorcas shows what it looks like when a single woman is not alone because she has become part of a real household of faith. Her life had weight because her love had hands. Peter kneels, prays, and says, “Tabitha, get up,” and the Lord gives her back alive, especially to the widows who missed her so much. That miracle does not just show power; it shows how precious a person becomes when a life has been poured into people.
Aeneas gives the other side of the picture. A paralyzed man for eight years could not have made it without people around him, people to move him, wash his mat, help him when the rain came, and carry him through ordinary days. The question becomes plain: who are the mat holders? A church community is not just a crowd on Sunday; it is the place where encouragement, correction, help, and presence become real.
Jesus shows the final stage, giving death away. Gethsemane, Judas’ kiss, the council, Pilate, Herod, the whip, the thorns, and the cross all reveal the Son letting go in humility. The end of life asks every attached heart to say, “I would rather have Jesus than this.” Hebrews gives the refrain for every lonely stage: God will never leave or forsake, and the Lord is the helper who drives out fear.