Yanawada Obath Ma Athaharala Lyrics by Bro. Charles Thomas

Are you going too, leaving me behind?
do you not understand my word?..
Having seen the Father’s plan,
surely it is not possible for me
to comfort the thoughts of every single soul..
to make glad
all the people of the world, how can it be done?

This is a short but poignant hymn that seems to give voice to a very human moment in the life of Jesus himself. Its opening question, “are you going too, leaving me behind?”, echoes a scene in the Gospel of John where many followers turned away, and Jesus asked the twelve who remained, “will you also go away?” There is real ache in the words, the loneliness of the one who came to love, watching people leave.

The middle lines carry the weight of a divine calling that others struggle to grasp. “Do you not understand my word?” and “having seen the Father’s plan,” the singer, in Christ’s voice, points to a purpose received from the Father that must be followed no matter who walks away, “surely it is not possible for me” to abandon it. The plan of salvation cannot be set aside just because it is hard or unpopular.

The final lines open onto the sheer scale, and sorrow, of that mission. “To comfort the thoughts of every single soul, to make glad all the people of the world, how can it be done?” It is an almost weary question, acknowledging how impossibly large the task of loving and saving the whole world is, and how few seem to stay for it. What the listener is left with is a tender, unusual meditation, not on Christ’s power but on his loneliness and his faithfulness, the God-man who kept to the Father’s plan of love even as others left, still longing to gladden every heart in the world.