Apr 3 – “In Pain and Lost”

Psalm 22
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,
and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress?”
******************************
Have you felt ever forsaken? Do you feel forsaken right now, at this moment? Has there been a time, or do you presently feel that God is not with you?

A week from today we will experience, in the celebration of Good Friday, a short time without our Lord Jesus Christ. In our remembrance of this day, we see the young man Jeshua given a false trial, beaten, dragging a cross through the streets, brutally nailed to this cross, dying a horrible death. As He is hanging on the rough-hewn boards, bleeding and broken above the barren landscape of Golgotha, He cries out to God. He asks His Father, his Abba, “Why? Why have you forsaken me?”.

While on the cross, Jesus makes a journey of loss. He moves from the question of why; being parched with thirst; to asking forgiveness for those who have persecuted him; to comforting his mother; to the recognition of the end of his earthly life; to the peace that comes at the time of death, commending His spirit to God in Heaven.

You may wonder, if Jesus was God incarnate, omnipotent, fully God, how could He experience the pain, loss and feeling of being lost that He did? Wouldn’t He have known that His pain and death was only temporary? Why would He ask for the cup to pass from Him? The reason…not only was He fully God, but He was also fully Man.

When we are in pain, when we feel loss or lost, we go through the same emotions as Jesus on the cross. We wonder why this thing is happening to us. We experience deep pain. We weep. We ask for the hurt to go away. All of these things are a part of us being human and perfectly acceptable emotions to feel. We should never be hard on ourselves for wondering why. At no time, should we think that pain, hurt, anger, feeling lost are in any way a sign of being somehow less than we should be. All of these things are a natural part of how God created us.


So, if you are experiencing pain, if you have had loss, if you are in a place of questioning and hurt even today, know that this is just a part of our story. Pain and loss is the crucible in which we are refined, like gold. Do not be hard on yourself for feeling apart from God at times. Recognize that even Jesus felt this pain. He felt deserted. But, we also see Jesus at the end of His time on earth, forgiving, comforting and in peace. As He was fully Man, so are we. We can be comforted in knowing that pain is not permanent, it will pass from us as surely as we will pass from this world into the joy of our eternal life in Heaven.