Last Words: "Here is your son"

For the last few weeks, the internet has been captivated by a tiny monkey.

A baby macaque named Punch at a zoo in Japan somehow captured millions of hearts. People watched video after video of him being pushed away by his mother… ignored by the others… wandering around the enclosure looking for somewhere to belong.

And then there was the stuffed animal.

Punch found a little stuffed orangutan and started carrying it everywhere. Whenever things got hard, he ran back to that toy. He clung to it, rested his head on it, dragged it around the zoo like it was the one place he felt safe.

And people all over the world watched and said the same thing:

“Poor little guy.”

But if we’re honest, the reason Punch captured our hearts is because we recognized something familiar.

Because deep down, most of us know that feeling.

The feeling of wanting to belong.
The feeling of wanting someone to notice us.
The feeling of not wanting to be alone.

Loneliness is one of the most common experiences in modern life… and one of the least talked about.

But today, as we continue listening to the final words Jesus spoke from the cross, we’re going to hear something surprising.

Even in the middle of his suffering…
even in the final moments of his life…

Jesus is still building a family.

And it turns out that might be the very thing our lonely hearts have been searching for.