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Seven Final Sayings of Jesus: #4 'Abandonment'
[Makeover]
04/12/2010
By Admin, Admin
Jesus shouted, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?”
Godforsaken: Not a word we use very often. Is there a time and place when even God has had enough of us, when even the immortal invisible needs to take some personal time? Was God now hiding from Jesus… or was it just that Jesus lost sight of God? When it feels like that, what’s the difference?
As darkness falls, confusion rises. Voices nearby drop away, disappear. Spectators lose interest. Now just the silent sound of hearts breaking, hope evaporating.
Of all the agony of that tortuous day-the lacerations from the scourging, the chafing of the thorns around his head, the convulsions of his tormented, dehydrated body as it hung in the heat all day—nothing reaches the depth of this anguished cry of desolation, “My God, my God, why have you deserted me?”
Jesus, who found his purpose and strength in the presence of God, who was sustained by the immediacy of his relationship with God and who endured all by the tangible power of God always at work with him, always a center of vitality and peace, found himself totally alone on the cross. Jesus, whose very being was God, found himself utterly, absolutely, despairingly, cut off from all that gives life and breath --cut off from all that gives purpose and hope --cut off from the source of his being --cut off, even from himself--plumbing the depths of the human condition to walk in the place of the utter absence of God, in the place of sinners, in the place of those who reject God.
"My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Why? God cannot look at him, forsakes him because of our sin. Jesus Christ was abandoned to his fate in the middle of history. “Hello?” No reply.
“Anyone there?” Nothing answers. Just you and nothing. Forsaken. Foolish. Losing it. You have to lose your life in order to find it, He had said. He took on our sin, was abandoned and forsaken, all to save us from our sin—to save our lives.
In these words is the central mystery of the crucifixion we can’t fully comprehend, that there is no despair so deep or evil so overwhelming or place so far removed from joy, light, and love--from the very heart of God that God has not been before us, and where God cannot meet us and bring us home.
Pastor Jeannette Conver
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