“My God my God why have you forsaken me?” This is Jesus’ question on Good Friday. As Jesus is nailed to the cross, abandoned by his friends, taunted by those he came to heal, feed, teach, he cries out in agony and despair from the cross, “My God My God why have you forsaken me? It was not his unique prayer. He was quoting the ancient prayer book of his people (Psalm 22).
How many others have cried out with this same prayer throughout the centuries? Soldiers in prisoner-of-war camps. Slaves in cargo ships. Refugees in sinking rafts. Parents at a child’s grave. Teenagers plagued with the rising tide of suicide among their peers. A spouse grieving that her beloved has succumbed again to the power of addiction.
There are no words of explanation that can comfort some despair. Sometimes, questioning God is the best we can do. It is often said that many of us spend more of our days in the painful reality of Good Friday than in the joyful elation of Easter morn. Good Friday is ominous. We depart the sanctuary in silence. Leaving no candles on the table.
Today we remember that God, the divine Spirit of the universe, enters into our pain with us. God knows our pain, not through observation but through experience. God is completely with us. The way God saves us not by rescuing us but by becoming as fragile and vulnerable to tears and drops of blood as we are. I like how Barbara Brown Taylor puts it:
“When Jesus howls his last question from the cross, it is God who howls—protesting the pain, opposing it with his last breath. Only this is no defeat. This is, contrary to all appearances, a triumph over suffering. By refusing to avoid it or to lie about it in any way, the crucified one opens a way through it.”
Grace and Peace,
Carla
