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Maybe I misheard or misunderstood, but during the sermon what I heard for one of the three points was that because of Jesus' death on the cross we can never feel forsaken by God. I believe the wording was something to the affect that Jesus was the only person who ever felt the absence of God.
And I cringed.
Because that just isn't true in my life, the lives of others around me, or in the Bible.
I keep thinking back to Australia and the semester that followed when life was very rough - to the point where I pulled Shane aside and asked him what it meant if I was preparing to be a pastor and I couldn't pray. That when I tried, God was totally absence and it felt like I was running into a brick wall. As someone who needs prayer as a time of refreshment, guidance, and life, I felt totally and utterly abandoned. I can't even really say, as I now reflect on that time, that God was there and I just wasn't paying attention. I can say that God used that time in my life later, but I cannot say that I was wrong in my feelings of abandonment. But according to part of the sermon, that isn't even a possibility.
I also had the sermon intersecting in my mind with a discussion my group in New Testament had surrounding parables - what happens if God looses you? Is it possible? And what are the implications? All too often we want to cry no, that isn't in God's nature. But really there are so many people that have gone through what St. John of the Cross describes as "dark night of the soul", where God is just distant, but absent.
Finally, Christ was not the first to cry "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The Psalmist pleaded the question first. In fact, various psalmists speak of the distress of God leaving them, but Psalm 22 asks the question as Jesus did in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34. And if the Psalmist and Christ can cry out, are we not allowed as well?
1 comment:
Okay, so first I just want to say that I won't presume to say I know an answer one way or the other, or that your gut feeling about your experience is right or wrong. I read your post and went to go see if I could find any specific spot in my Bible that said that. So far I have the last verse in Matthew (28:20) (I only have a German Bible here with me): "Und lehret sie halten alles, was ich euch befohlen habe! Und siehe, ich bin bei euch alle Tage bis an der Welt Ende." This for me almost seems to connect the passing on of Jesus' orders with Jesus being with us until the world ends. I'm not sure I mentally grasp that connection beyond that the "Und siehe" acts as a connector between the sentences. The note references Matthew 18:20 - "Denn wo zween oder drei versammelt sind in meinem Namen, da bin ich mitten unter ihnen." This seems to further support the connection from the later verse in that Jesus is with us "where two or three are gathered in His Name". So, our job is to pass on His message. In order to do so, we gather together in groups of two or more. Perhaps the abandonment occurs when gatherers separate - physically and spiritually(?). The verse right before that (18:19) also emphasizes the importance of communicating with God in a group setting. Mark, John and Luke don't mention this. (Luke in my Bible is split up into two parts and spread out a bit strangely - it is Martin Luther's translation as it stood in 1545, so some of the German is old). It is an interesting thing to think about, though.
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