God Never Leaves Us
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” -- which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” -- Matthew 27:46
Have you ever felt that God has abandoned you? Have you ever looked up at the sky and begged God to see you and hear you and help you? Jesus knows how you feel. His words as He neared death on the cross clearly reveal that.
Jesus suffered an unimaginable agony as He hung on that cross. Six hours just on the cross. And before that a flogging. All because He healed the sick and give hope to the poor. Because He dared to teach God’s Word as God intended it. Jesus was the only truly blameless person to ever live and yet He died in shame, in humiliation, in pain. Punishment that belonged to you and me.
Yeah, He felt abandoned. Did God turn away as some folks speculate? I don’t think so. God doesn’t turn away from us when we sin so why would He turn away from His Son while that Son paid for my sins and yours? I believe God felt Jesus’ pain, just like He feels our pain.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?” -- Psalm 22:1
David wrote those words hundreds of years before Jesus cried out on the cross. A man after God’s own heart felt abandoned by God too. So maybe feeling abandoned isn’t such a rare thing. Maybe we can take comfort in those words.
The thing is God doesn’t abandon us. Ever. He never leaves us. We leave Him. We probably don’t mean to. At least, not at first. But we go out on our own trying to live our lives as we see fit. We try to solve our own problems. We try to handle things by ourselves. And we get in really deep water, we panic and, then, we start looking for the rock. We feel lost and alone. Abandoned. But we aren’t. He’s right there. Where He’s always been.
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