God forsaken
My eyes are spent with weeping;
My stomach churns. Lamentations 2:11
Read Lamentations 3:37—44,49—50
Here tonight I am asked to place myself with Israel, huddled in exile in a foreign land, in the place of God’s absence. To know God as the God who has wrapped himself in silence. Who is out of touch, unmoved by prayer. The place of Godforsakenness. The end point of my own self-seeking. Here, in this place, I am the sibling of vast, vast numbers. Here is how multitudes of my human companions have known God today and know God tonight. It is no knowledge. It is no fellowship. It is the strange, the alien side of God. Yet it is true knowledge. It is how God is until I meet him in the Godforsaken one who is my brother.[1]
What a wonderful love it is, my God and Saviour, that you should meet me at the place of Godforsakenness. That there, above all, is the place where you should meet me. That every Godforsaken one has Jesus Christ as brother. That the lostness which is the conclusion of my own way should lead me to the meeting place, the cross of Jesus, where your love receives its fullest definition, where nothing of yourself has been held back, where your commitment to lost humanity is total. Let me cry out with all those who are lost to you. Let me be their friend in my day-to-day life. I pray this in your name.
[1] Mark 15:34