“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is how Psalm 22 begins. These words may be more familiar to us from the crucifixion story. In the reflection yesterday, we talked about God being a natural part of our lives. What about this extreme plea of abandonment? This is a terrified cry of abandonment.
However natural it may be for us to have God as part of our reality, we can also understand separation from God. There are times when we do not feel close to God. We once had a church member who told me that every time she came to church, she saw the light. It was there every Sunday. Then, she stopped seeing the light. And stopped coming to church. There are those moments, those seasons, those times of life, when things shift. We may feel further away from God, or sense God’s absence. We may have this experience at a time of severe pain and grief: A time we feel most in need of divine love and comfort. Yet even mystics of old who devoted their lives to prayer tell of the “dark night of the soul.” This is the experiencing of the absence of the divine. So we see that sensing God’s absence is also a common experience of the spiritual life.
While Psalm 22 is ultimately a celebration of God’s steadfast love and deliverance which brings humanity through affliction and struggle, the beginning of the psalm also acknowledges the pain of feeling abandoned by God. Yet even from the pit of abandonment, terrified, scorned, despised, mocked, ridiculed, threatened and on death’s door, the writer declares, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” And just who is the writer addressing? To whom is this plea directed? My God. Even from the place of separation, abandonment, and forsakenness, the psalm pleads to God. That very act, those very words, “My God, my God,” undermine the absence. They de-stabilize the abandonment. Faith, however tenuous, persists.
When we are feeling far from God, separated from our spiritual selves, abandoned by God, our continued prayers to God will help to create the new reality of experiencing God’s abiding presence once more.
Prayer
May we continue to pray to God even when we are not sure of God’s presence. May we trust God with our most honest feelings and needs. May we share our truth with God and with one another even in the face of extreme doubt and confusion. May we not be afraid of the depth of our human experience. To live abundantly is to live deeply as Jesus did. Amen.
Lakewood United Church of Christ 