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"My God, My God, Why have you Forsaken Me?"
This evening we continue our Lenten journey
entitled: The Seven Wonders of the Word. During this
season we listen again to the words which Jesus spoke
on the cross as he gave his life for you and me. Today
we listen to the most painful words which have even been
spoken in the history of the world: “My God, My God, why
have you forsaken me?!”
As we travel through the wonders of the word, I began
to wonder, just what does the word “forsaken” really mean?
I use it regularly, but what does it really mean? Our
students know what you are supposed to do when you don’t
know what a word means. You are supposed to look it up
in the dictionary, so that is what I did. I looked in
my handy dandy Webster’s and I found that forsaken means:
To quit or leave entirely, to abandon.
To quit or leave entirely, to abandon, yes, that I understand.
It conjures up the image of a cabin which once sat in a meadow
in the mountains near my boyhood home. I don’t know how old
this cabin actually was, but I know that it once must have been
a beautiful sight. A lovely little log cabin on the banks of the
Platte River set against the backdrop of the pine-covered
mountains. It was surely beautiful once, and it was also
just as surely full of life. Looking at the outside, you
could tell that it had been added-on to several times,
perhaps as the family inside grew. How many people lived
there? How many evenings did they sit snuggly by the fire?
How many prayers found their way from its dinner table to
the ears of God? How many Christmases did they celebrate
there? How many times, after a long day of hard work, did
this little cabin look like a little piece of heaven with
food and rest and love inside?
Of course by the time I came along, this little cabin didn’t
look so much like heaven or even home. It was a worn out hulk
where nobody lived anymore. It was boarded up and its only
visitors were those who came to pull off the rough wood of
its walls and use them for decoration in their homes, or even
as fuel for their evening campfire. It had been left entirely,
abandoned.
It looked the way that we all feel from time to time.
Every one of us knows what if feels like to have someone
quit or leave us entirely. Friends turn their back on us,
parents, teachers, and bosses let us down. No one seems
to care what we have to say. Loved ones promise to call
but the phone never rings. The mailbox is empty.
We know what it feels like to be left entirely, forgotten
and sometimes we even feel that way about God. We wonder
why we have to live in this pain, why our hopes and dreams
are shattered, why the illness has lasted so long, why our
job is gone, why our loved one is gone, why our hope is
gone. And sometimes, whether we would ever say it out
loud or not, we find ourselves thinking: “My God, My God,
why have you forsaken me?” Why have you left me here to
suffer, why have you left me here feeling so all alone?
We all know what if feels like to feel this way, but do
we ever stop to think that God feels this way too? We
are so quick to ask him for things, but are we so quick
to do what he asks of us? His requests are simple, that
we would love him with all our hearts and minds, with
all that we have, and that we would love our neighbors
as ourselves. But instead it is ourselves that we love
and serve.
What happened to our relationship with God? What happened
to our daily prayer? What happened to our daily time in
the word? What happened to the life-giving joy which we
once felt in worship? When was the last time that we
studied the Bible with a group or consulted its pages
during a time of personal need? When was the last time
that we consulted God about a decision which we needed to
make? When was the last time that we thought about Him
first and ourselves second? In truth, we quit on God,
leave Him entirely; abandon Him at will. In truth,
God might well say: My child, my child, why have
you forsaken me?
It is a situation beyond tolerance. The holy God cannot
tolerate being in the presence of such sin, our sin. But
he also cannot tolerate the thought of being separated from
us. He loves us too much for that. And so he came to be
where we are. He comes in the person of this Son, Jesus
Christ. He comes to the rough-hewn wood of a manger. Here
in that manger, heaven has indeed come to earth.
Yet, the people of the earth did not receive him. They had
abandoned him for their own desires and even had the nerve
to accuse him of abandoning them, failing to notice all that
they had done, to recognize who lucky he was that they were
his people.
Finally, when they had torn him down as much as they could,
they lifted him up, up onto a cross. He had traveled from
the rough wood a manger and now he faced the rough wood of
a cross. There on that cross he spoke of his pain, his
suffering, of his heart. How strange it is that on that
cross he doesn’t say: “My child, my child, why have you
forsaken me?” Instead he tells us just how completely
alone he really was. He had been rejected by those he
came to save. His closest followers, who had seen such
miracles, left him in fear. Even the warming face of the
sun was gone and he was left there alone in the darkness.
But even that was not enough. Remember, God cannot be in
the presence of sin, so he placed that sin on his Son and
left him there alone to die. In the history of the world
there never been words spoken which had more pain, more
loneliness, more abandonment. Throughout his life, Jesus
prayed: “My Father” and he taught us to do the same, to
pray: “Our Father.” But now, in his agony Jesus calls
out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
He calls out the question and he identifies the problem. God
had truly forsaken him, quit on him, left him entirely. What
if God had answered Jesus’ question to himself there in heaven?
What would his answer be: why have I forsaken you, well, by
beloved son, I have forsaken you because I made them a promise
that I would never forsake them. I cannot live in the presence
of their sin, so you must take it away, away into death. It is
after these words that Jesus finally gives us his life and dies,
alone, completely, rejected, abandoned, even by his Father in heaven.
A little boy once invited his friend to join him in Sunday school.
That day the teacher had decided to show a DVD. On the screen the
visitor watched in horror at scenes that remembered Jesus death
on the cross. There in the midst of his shock and sadness, his
friend, who had heard the story before, leaned over to him and
said: “don’t worry, he’ll be back!”
That is what I want to remind you of this evening. You
may have heard the story so many times, but never forget that
he will be back. On first Easter morning the story of
abandonment became a story of joy when the women discovered
that Jesus was no longer dead but that God the Father had
remembered him and raised him from the dead.
It is in this death and resurrection that Jesus has made it
possible for God the Father to fulfill his greatest promise.
Jesus has taken away our sin, it is gone and now we are able
to be in God’s presence and now he promises us once again
that he will never, ever forsake us. This is the promise
that shines its light into the darkness of our lives and
reminds us that he will never forsake us. He is with us
no matter what. It is Jesus’ forsakenness which has earned
for us forgiveness, now and forever.
I traveled home to Colorado this year just after Christmas and
I made a discovery that put a smile on my face. I drove by
the place where the little log cabin used to stand, and it
was gone. It made me pretty sad, so I asked my cousin what
happened to it. She had good news for me. She said that the
people of that little mountain community had pooled their
resources and moved that cabin into the protection of their
town park where it is no longer abandoned. To tell you the
truth, it made me feel pretty good to know that that little
home, that perhaps had looked like a little piece of heaven
to so many now had a home of its own!
That is God’s ultimate promise to you and me. We have a home.
We have a home with him here on this earth and we have a home
that is not just a little piece of heaven, but heaven itself
one day. My handy, dandy Webster’s told me that forsaken means
to be quit or left entirely. My Bible tells me that our God
will never forsake us. He is with us always, that is all there
is to it. So, don’t worry, he’ll be back!
In Jesus' Name! Amen.
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