Why Have You Forsaken Me?

There is much in our faith walk that avoids, dismisses, or covers up the reality of darkness, forsakenness in our journey.  Yet, it is real.  They put him to death on a tree, but God....raised him on the third day.

In the darkness of our remembrance this day, if ever there was a conditional clause that gives rise to hope, it is this:  but God...I once was lost, broken, confused, dazed, grieving, depressed, hurting, alone...but God rescued me...delivered me...walked with me.

The world bids us seek happiness at all costs, even when we waste precious time chasing after illusions.  But God says: you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and your neighbor as your self.  The world says, avoid and ignore death at all costs, take care of number one.  But God says, those who would save their life will lose it.  The way of the world leads to death, illusions, false power, empty prestige.  But God's way leads to death and then new life, life abundant, and life poured out in love.

In our darkest hour there is still light.  Theologian Douglas John Hall writes: 

“Darkness entered into, darkness realized,

 is the point of departure for all profound expressions of Christian hope.

 'Meaningless darkness' becomes 'revelatory darkness' 

when it is confronted by the courage of a thoughtfulness

 and hope that is born of faith's quest for truth.”

While so much of our gaze at the Cross will focus on Jesus' suffering for us, and while our hope is found in the but God reality of this day, there is one more preposition to emphasize:  Jesus' suffering with us.  Diana Butler Bass puts this into words poignantly:

Indeed, thinking that Jesus died for salvation may give pause, cause us to raise a prayer of thanks, feel sadness or relief; but ultimately, the idea that someone dies for something is theologically and spiritually uncomplicated.

But with is complicated, even frightening.  Good Friday plunges us into with. Have you sacrificed with others?  Have you walked the way of death with someone?  Felt the power of the suffering love?   Do you feel Jesus dying with his Mother, his friends, with us, with all creatures, with the firmament, with the planets and the elements?  Can you embrace the truth that, at Calvary, Jesus’ Mother, friends, US, all creatures, the firmament, the planets and all elements died there with him, too?

The Cross isn’t a contract between God and sinners; the Cross is God’s definitive expression of kinship and love—that everything, everywhere, through all time, is connected in and through pain and suffering.  That is God’s Passion; that is Jesus’ Cross.  And, in the tortured Christ, we find the hope to endure, a love for others and creation, the power to enact God’s dream of love and justice for the whole world.  We are with God.  God is with us.  This is why the Cross should cause us to tremble, tremble.  We tremble at the fearsome with of God.