“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
That is the prayer of the psalmist.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O, my God; I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”
The first line of this psalm is more familiar to us coming from the lips of Jesus. He quoted this verse when he was dying on the cross.
There, on the cross, Jesus experienced the absence of God.
And this experience was real.
Others in the Bible also cried out to God in desperation or anger. They experienced times of spiritual darkness.
Moses felt such despair that he begged God to kill him. Job cursed God and asked to die. Jacob got into a wrestling match with God.
Do you ever feel like you are wrestling with God?
And Jesus, in addition to his cry from the cross, also experienced that darkness when he wept over Lazarus, and again, when he was in the garden, in agony just before being arrested.
Being a faithful follower of God does not mean that you will always be happy and cheerful. Being a faithful follower of God does not mean that you will always feel God’s presence surrounding you. Being a faithful follower of God does not make you immune to episodes of spiritual darkness.
If you are a human being living in the world, there will be times when you feel down, times when you feel lost, times when you feel despair, and perhaps even times when you feel forsaken by God.
Some of you have felt abandoned by God. Some of you might even feel today that God has abandoned you... that God has forgotten all about you.
Maybe you feel angry at God.
And maybe, if you’ve mentioned that to someone - your anger, your sense of abandonment - they said to you something like:
“Oh, you feel abandoned by God? You feel angry? But if you really had faith in God, if you really loved God, you wouldn't feel that way....”
And they make you feel guilty about feeling angry or feeling abandoned.
Not helpful, is it?
Would they say the same thing to Jesus? Or to Moses? Or to Job? Or to Jacob?
Because they all felt abandoned by God, or angry at God, or so upset about things that they wanted God to end their lives.
Jesus felt angry at God and abandoned by God even while he proclaimed God to be my God… “My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus felt angry at God and abandoned by God even though many New Testament authors claim that, in some way, Jesus was God.
Take a moment, and try to wrap your mind around that...
Jesus, who (in some way) was God felt abandoned by God. So it certainly seems reasonable to assume that, at some time in our lives, we, too, might feel abandoned by God. Even though we are created by God, in the image of God, it is quite possible that, at times, we can also feel abandoned by God.
Sometimes, the things that lead us to feel this way are personal issues. Health crises. Relationship issues. Family dysfunction. Addiction.
Sometimes, the things that lead us to feel this way come from society.
And sometimes, it’s a combination of the two. If you are facing a health crisis, and at the same time the government is making it harder for you to receive the care you need to deal with that health crisis, that’s a double whammy. It feels like you are being hit from all sides.
If you are struggling to pay the bills, and you hear that services that help you are being cut in order to pay for tax cuts given to the rich, that’s a double whammy.
If your home is destroyed by a wildfire, or if you catch a disease spread by mosquitoes that have spread due to climate change, and at the same time your government denies climate change and even rolls back environmental protections, that’s a double whammy.
And if you are a survivor of sexual assault, dealing with feelings of fear or guilt, and then influential people in society demonstrate that they aren’t willing to take seriously the stories of those who have survived sexual violence committed against them, that’s a double whammy.
And it might lead you to feel abandoned. It might lead you to give up hope. It might lead you to feel like the psalmist who wrote this psalm. It might lead you to feel like Jesus when he quoted it from the cross.
How do you deal with that? How do you cope? How do you find hope?
Last week, I gave you a hint of what works for me. I told you about my hike in the Santa Monica Mountains, on a warm October Saturday, following years of record-low precipitation. The end of summer is always a dry, dormant time in this Mediterranean climate, but the ongoing drought have made things especially dry.
I expected to see plants that were brown, as they normally are at the end of summer. Brown is the color of scrub plants that have gone dormant and are waiting for the rains of winter to revive them.
I also expected to see plants that were ash grey. Ash grey is the color of plants that have dried out completely. No amount of winter rains will revive them. They are dead.
And I did see plants that were brown, and I did see plants that were ash grey.
But I also saw plants with flowers on them. Not just one or two, but gobs of them. They were all over, and there were different types: white circular flowers, salmon-colored trumpet-shaped flowers, tiny branches covered with little pink blossoms, and even a scattering of yellow flowers.
How on earth were they surviving, having received practically no rain for so long? The ground from which they grew was as dry and dusty as one could imagine. And most of these were not big plants; their roots couldn’t be that deep. Perhaps they could absorb moisture from the air, from the fog that comes in off the ocean - I wasn’t sure.
But what I knew was that hope was springing forth, and beauty was springing forth, out of seemingly impossible circumstances.
Just like the resurrection of Jesus, which sprang forth out of a seemingly impossible circumstance.
Jesus told his disciples multiple times that he would die, and on the third day rise again, yet it still seemed to them that if he died, that hope would die with him. And even when he was in the garden, and even when he was on the cross, Jesus himself was in despair.
But Jesus never lost hope completely. Jesus felt despair, he felt abandonment, but he, at least, was able to hold on to a small petal of hope.
And that’s all you need, really: one small petal of hope. The whole hillside can be barren, brown, or even ash grey, but if there is one small petal blooming, then there is hope.
Where do you find that hope?
I find it here. I really do. When I look at the news headlines, my hope starts to waver, but then I remember all of you good people, and your faith, and your commitment to following the way of Jesus, and working to reveal to the world the kingdom of God that is present in our midst. And that gives me hope.
I look for small acts of kindness - little things that show me that people do still care for one another, that people do offer help to one another, even when there is nothing in it for them. Selfless acts of love. A child walking down the street sees a caterpillar crossing the sidewalk, and they guard it and protect it until it makes it across, so that no one accidentally steps on it.
It’s a small gesture. Just a petal. One colorful petal in a world of brown and ash grey. But it’s enough.
I notice a person taking time out of their busy, hectic schedule to visit someone in the hospital, or to deliver food to someone in the midst of struggle. Just one little petal.
I see a driver who stops and waves me in, letting me pull out into a busy street. One tiny, barely significant act of kindness. But they didn’t have to that.
I contemplate a person I’ve never met, taking my son who is 500 miles away to the hospital, caring for him in my absence, making sure he’s OK. That’s more than one small petal, actually.
In Psalm 22, which starts with such despair, such a feeling of forsakenness, the psalmist eventually moves on to praise. By verse 25, the psalmist says, “I will praise you in the congregation.”
The psalmist, I think, has learned to see that one colorful petal. And in those moments when he could not see that petal, the congregation saw it for him.
He has to praise God in the congregation, because the congregation helped him see that flower petal when he himself could not see it, when he himself could only see shades of brown and grey.
That’s why we meet together. It’s why we pray together. It’s why we worship together. Sometimes, all we can see is brown and grey, and we need the congregation to remind us that the flower petals are still there, blooming.
One final word of encouragement. In Lord of the Rings, when all hope seems lost, Sam says this to Frodo...
Sam: “It’s all wrong. By rights we shouldn’t even be here. But we are. It’s like in the great stories Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end.
“Because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was, when so much bad happened. But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.
“Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something. Even if you were too small to understand why. But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand. I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. Because they were holding on to something.”
Frodo: “What are we holding on to, Sam?”
Sam: “That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for.”
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