Good Friday Perspective: God, Forsaken

I share these thoughts, hoping they are of help to someone else.

God, Forsaken

Scripture:

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

Psalm 22:1-2 (NRSV)

I was sure by now
God, You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again
I say "Amen"
And it's still raining

From "Praise You in this Storm" by Casting Crowns

On a Thursday night, while praying in a garden, Jesus is sold out by one of his closest friends into the hands of people who hate him and want him out of the way. He is abandoned by His disciples and taken to the religious leaders to be tried for His supposed crimes against the faith. He is judged to be deserving of death and is mocked and beaten. On Friday morning, Jesus is taken by the angry mob to the governor, who, by popular demand, sentences Him to death by crucifixion. He is mocked and beaten further, and, at nine o'clock in the morning, He is nailed to a cross and hanged up to die.

The hours slowly pass as Jesus languishes on the cross. At noon, the sky turns dark. At three o'clock in the afternoon, just before dying, Jesus cries out those familiar but blood-chilling words,

"My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"¹

Reading about the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, one cannot help but wonder if God would really forsake His own Son. The Crucifixion of Christ is sometimes understood to be a sacrifice of atonement in which the sin of humanity was placed on Jesus. This would mean that, on the cross, Jesus essentially took the punishment that humans deserve because of their sins. One might then understand Jesus' cry to mean that God could no longer even look at Jesus because of the sin He was carrying. In this perspective, I will not argue for or against this idea of atonement. Personally, I doubt we will ever fully understand exactly what happened on the cross that Friday.

I do not believe that God actually forsook Jesus that day. At the same time, though, I believe that Jesus cried out what He did - "Why have You forsaken Me?" - because He genuinely felt as though He was forsaken by God.

In the book Insurrection, philosopher Peter Rollins points to the cross as the site where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, became an atheist. This is not to say that Jesus stopped believing in God. The atheism Jesus experienced on the cross was not an intellectual atheism: rather, it was an experiential atheism. On the cross, Jesus experienced a type of divine absence: He felt as though God was no longer there for Him.² When Christ prayed in the garden, "Not what I want, but what You want," He gave up everything for God. On the cross, He, in a sense, lost everything including God.³

There are times in our lives when we find ourselves shaken to the very core. Sometimes, through our own fault or through the fault of someone else, we face circumstances that can only be described as godforsaken. These are times when we are no longer sure about what we believe, times when everything we ever heard in church no longer makes any sense to us. These are times in our lives when we wonder if there really is a God or wonder if God actually loves us or even cares about us. Perhaps we even find ourselves uttering, "God hates me."

I do not believe that God actually forsook Jesus on the cross, nor do I think God forsakes us during our own "dark nights of the soul." I believe that God always extends love to us, but there are times in our lives when we are unable to sense God's presence or God's love for us.

A few years ago, my mother switched from cable television to satellite television, so sometimes, during heavy rainstorms, she is unable to watch television. This does not mean that television broadcasts cease during heavy storms. Rather, it means that the satellite dish is unable to receive a signal due to interference from the wind and the rain. Sometimes a person can be like a satellite dish. Like the satellite signal, God is present with us despite our circumstances, but we may have trouble sensing God's presence when we are blown about and tossed by the storms of our lives.

The author of the Letter to the Hebrews writes, "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."⁴ At Christmas, we celebrate the Incarnation, the idea that God the Son left the heavenly realms to be embodied in human flesh. In the Incarnation, God, in Jesus Christ, joined us in the human experience: laughter, tears, trials, temptations, friendships, conflicts, parties, meals. On Good Friday, we remember the Crucifixion of Jesus Christ. At the crucifixion, God, in Jesus Christ, joined us in our godforsakenness.

In the Christian faith, we believe in a God who is able to empathize with us because God became human for us. Even when we feel as though God has forsaken us, God still understands how we feel, because God has experienced that feeling as well through Christ.

According to writer Anne Lamott, one of the most powerful things a person can say to someone else is "Me too." Rob Bell writes, "When you're struggling, when you are hurting, wounded, limping, doubting, questioning, barely hanging on, moments away from another relapse, and somebody can identify with you - someone knows the temptations that are at your door, somebody has felt the pain that you are feeling, when someone can look you in the eyes and say, 'Me too,' and they actually mean it - it can save you."⁵

I believe that the cross was, among other things, God's way of saying, "I understand how you feel - you are not alone." When Christ cried out, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" He said, "Me too," to a broken, hurting humanity.

On Good Friday, we remember the suffering and death of Jesus Christ on the cross. On Easter Sunday, we remember that Christ left behind an empty tomb. Over the course of these three days, we are reminded that, though we suffer, the crosses we bear are not the end of the story. We remember, as the Psalmist penned, "Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning."⁶ Wherever you find yourself right now, whether you are weeping or laughing, whether you are suffering or celebrating, whether it is "Friday" or "Sunday" for you, realize that you are not alone.


Notes:
1 - Mark 14:31-15:41
2 - Peter Rollins, Insurrection. 2011, Howard Books. pp. 20-21
3 - Rollins, p. 27
4 - Hebrews 4:15 (NRSV)
5 - Rob Bell and Don Golden, Jesus Wants to Save Christians. 2008, Zondervan. p. 151
6 - Psalm 30:5 (NRSV)

The photograph featured in this perspective is believed to be public domain.


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