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Have You Ever Felt Forsaken?
Danny Sims ( Senior Minister )
Quite a bit of the dialogue from the story of the death of Jesus is in Psalm 22. For example, Jesus says, "I am thirsty." The crowd "hurled insults at Him" and some said, "Let God rescue Him." Each of those phrases are found in the 22nd Psalm.
But the most well known line is the question in Psalm 22:1 "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Jesus had never felt forsaken before. Like you and me, when He felt something unfamiliar He went to the familiar (The Psalms). And when you don't know what to say the Psalms speak for you, just as they spoke for Jesus when He was forsaken on the cross.
Feeling forsaken by God is real. Too many people, even Christians, have the view that faith means never being empty, never feeling forsaken. That's not true! Faith means trusting when you are empty and forsaken.
There was a made for TV film about Dietrich Bonhoeffer called Agent of Grace. Bonhoeffer was a leader in the Confessing Church of Germany (a resistance movement against Nazism during the 1940s) who was arrested and sentenced to death by the Nazi regime. He was hanged in April 1945 less than a month before Germany surrendered to the Allies.
In one scene from the movie Bonhoeffer lies in his darkened prison cell and hears through the cement wall the weeping of a prisoner. Speaking through the wall, Bonhoeffer assures the man that he is not alone, and asks if he would like to pray. The reply comes back, "I don't believe in God."
Bonhoeffer leans against the stark cell wall and calls out to the prisoner, "If you can hear me, put your hands on the wall as if we were touching. Mine are here too." No hands appear.
Then he prays this prayer: Lord, it's dark in me; in you is day. I am alone, but you will stay. I am afraid; you never cease. I am at war; in you is peace.
Out of the darkness you see the other prisoner's hand move up alongside the cement wall, opposite where Bonhoeffer holds his hand. The prisoner is executed the next day and Bonhoeffer follows him to the gallows not long afterwards.
Remember, faith does not mean you never are empty or feel forsaken. Faith means trusting when you are empty and forsaken, just as Jesus did. Pray this prayer with me today: Lord, it's dark in me; in you is day. I am alone, but you will stay. I am afraid; you never cease. I am at war; in you is peace.
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