Matthew 27.46

FORSAKEN BY GOD

Matthew 27.46

'And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole earth until the ninth hour. And Jesus cried with a loud voice: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”’

The Palm Sunday crowds have forsaken him. The disciples, save for John, have forsaken him. And now it appears that even God has forsaken him. So Jesus cries, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

Whether or not these are the actual words of Jesus, or the opening words of psalm 22 put into the mouth of Jesus by the evangelist, we do not know. The one thing which we do know is that the evangelist included this incident, not just to give us some biographical detail, but to strengthen and edify the early Christian community to which he wrote his gospel.

That community was enduring the suffering of organised persecution. Hence, the early generation of Christians were people who often felt that God had forsaken them.

I find it interesting that these words, 'My God, my God why have you forsaken me’ occur during a time of darkness over the whole earth. Many attempts have been made to explain the darkness in terms of an eclipse. It is difficult to know exactly why the darkness occurred.

Nevertheless, we would all surely agree that it is at times of darkness that we are most conscious of being alone. The one faculty we most dread losing is that of sight. If we cannot see around ourselves, we feel insecure and threatened. We are no longer in control.

But that is the one thing that we as Christians cannot always expect, namely, to see where we are going. For to live by faith, and not by sight, is to live a life which is lived mostly in the dark. A life which is lived with the sense of sight is of little use. Perhaps this is the mistake we often make with those who suddenly find faith in Jesus, namely, that we encourage them to expect to live by sight, whereas they will be living a life of faith in darkness.

This is surely true of our own particular experience of life, namely, that it is in those moments of life, when we need God the most, that he appears to be far away. In moments of indecision, disappointment and frustration, that we find ourselves echoing those words, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’.

To live the life of faith is to live a life of a person who is blind. We are unable to see God. But that is the test of the maturity of our faith.

From the world of family life, we know that we often give rewards to encourage our children to be good. Eventually, if they are to grow more disciplined lives, it is necessary we withdraw such inducements. Likewise as Christians, we must expect the same withdrawal of favours in our spiritual life, if we are to grow. We must expect that serving God will more often be a cold and dark experience. When such times come we shall realise that there is nothing wrong. We have merely begun to live the life of faith.

Once we can accept this, many of the difficulties which we encounter in our spiritual lives, will begin to disappear. For instance, the feeling that there is no one there when we pray will seem normal. The absence of a sense of communion at the Eucharist does not mean that our attendance is a waste of time. Likewise boredom with religion, worship, the Bible and our prayers, which can be the cause of backsliding, will be expected as being normal.

What I am suggesting is that we should not always be expecting an experience of God. In fact the opposite is probably more often the case in prayer. That great spiritual writer, Dom John Chapman, has suggested that more people probably have no sense of the presence of God when they pray.

However, whilst Christians should expect to live in darkness, that darkness is not permanent. The darkness on Good Friday lasted only three hours. There are, therefore, occasions in the Christian life when that darkness is lit up with shafts of light to remind us of God’s presence. These will vary from person to person. When such times come, we look back only to discover that those experiences, which at the time seem so intolerable and pointless, now have meaning. That the God who appeared so absent for so long could not have been nearer. Those shafts of light come to give us strength as we struggle through the night of faith.

Those opening words of the twenty second Psalm uttered by Jesus upon the cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me’ are the experience of all who live by faith and not by sight.