"Abandoned by God"

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This opening line of the 22 nd psalm is one of the most plaintive cries in Scripture, or indeed, in all of literature.

It is the cry of agony, despair, and abandonment.

It is the cry of Jesus as he hangs dying on the cross.

Jesus, who at age 12 astonished the religious scholars by his knowledge of scripture, must have known many psalms by heart, including the very next one, the 23 rd.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.” Those words which are so familiar to us must surely have been known to Jesus.

But the cry that comes from his lips this day, the words that flow from his heart are not words of comfort, but of despair; not assurances of God’s presence, but a lament of God’s absence.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Oddly enough, it comforts me that this is the psalm that comes to Jesus as he hangs on the cross.

I take comfort in knowing that in his darkest hour Jesus is not glibly sure of God’s presence, but wonders if God has abandoned him.

It reassures me to know that at the hour of his death, on the verge of the magnificent moment of the resurrection, Jesus is at his most human.

“My God, my God, why have you forsake me?”

I wonder how many millions of times throughout history, in countless places of death and despair, illness and loneliness, poverty and desperation, these words have been cried out.

Where are you, God? Why are you letting this happen? Why have you abandoned me?

These are questions that Nobel laureate Elie Weisel often heard and asked himself during his time at Auschwitz concentration camp. In his book Night, Weisel recounts one of his darkest days in that dark period in human history.

“One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place. SS all around us, machine guns trained, the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains.”

Although this macabre scene had become almost commonplace in the hellish environment of the camp, this day was different. One of those to be hung was a young boy, described by Weisel as a “sad-eyed angel.”

“The SS seemed more preoccupied, more disturbed than usual,” Weisel noted. “To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light manner.

“The head of the camp read the verdict. All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him.

“The three victims mounted together onto the chairs, The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.”

“Where is God? Where is he?” someone behind Weisel cried.

The two adults died almost immediately, but the child, with his light body, did not. For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling in agony between life and death.

The child was still alive when the SS soldiers forced Weisel and the other prisoners to march past the gallows and look each victim in the face.

Behind Weisel, he heard the same man asking, “Where is God now?”

Weisel writes, “I heard a voice within me answer him: ‘Where is God now? Here he is – he is hanging here on these gallows.’”

And that is where God is today as another young Jewish man hangs on another instrument of death – there hanging with him, suffering with him.

That cross from which Jesus hangs is at the center of our faith. The instrument of death will, we know, be transformed into a symbol of eternal life.

But we must remember that there are two sides to that symbol.

Before we get to the joy of the resurrection, we must know a fully human life, a life that includes suffering, despair, and death.

Before we can fully appreciate grace, we must know the devastating consequences of sin.

Before we can fully appreciate God’s presence, we must know the despair of abandonment.

The same cross that symbolizes the ultimate victory over evil and death, that leads to light and life, is grounded in the darkest moments of the human condition.

We know, of course, that God did not abandon Jesus on the cross, that God was present in the midst of betrayal, suffering, and death. If death and despair were the only realities present at Calvary, we would not be gathered here today.

But because the one who came to save us, to lead us into life and light, experienced these depths of the human condition, because his cry from the cross was, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” we know that at our darkest moments Christ understands and stays with us.

What Jesus as savior offers us is not immunity from pain and suffering, but his companionship in all our dark nights.

Theologian Paul Tillich puts it this way: “It is the greatness and heart of the Christian message that God, as manifest in the Christ on the cross, totally participates in the dying of a child, in the condemnation of a criminal, in the disintegration of a min, in starvation and famine, and even in the human rejection of Himself.

“There is no human condition into which the divine presence does not penetrate. This is what the Cross, the most extreme of all human conditions, tells us.”

Amen

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Readings

Isaiah 52:13—53:12

See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him—so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals—so he shall startle many nations; kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate. Who has believed what we have heard? And to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity; and as one from whom others hide their faces he was despised, and we held him of no account. Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people. They made his grave with the wicked and his tomb with the rich, although he had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth. Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him with pain. When you make his life an offering for sin, he shall see his offspring, and shall prolong his days; through him the will of the Lord shall prosper. Out of his anguish he shall see light; he shall find satisfaction through his knowledge. The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will allot him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he poured out himself to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.

Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-9

Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.

John 18:1—19:42

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