Good Friday
The title of the sermon for Good Friday is: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? In addition to the word, forsaken, you could also use the words, abandoned or deserted. Forsaken, abandoned, deserted.
Any one of these three words is appropriate.The text for today is …from the heart of King David in Psalm 22:1 and from the heart of Jesus Christ in Mark 15:34. Both King David and Jesus spoke these words from their heart.
To begin with: Sometime during life, we will feel abandoned by a loved one. You will also experience feelings that accompany abandonment such as feelings of disappointment, discouragement, or being down in the dumps, sadness. Those feelings may become more intense feelings such as anger and even rage. A church minister had just such an experience when he was growing up. He felt abandoned by his older brother and sister.
He said: When I was a young boy growing up, my mother and father were have enormous difficulties with our family business and with their relationship. It got really ugly at our house between mom and dad, just about the time my older brother and sister went off to college, leaving me home alone to deal with my fighting parents. At that moment, I felt abandoned by my older brother and sister, leaving me at home alone to deal with the anger and fights of my parents. I know in my head that I wasn’t abandoned, but in my heart, I felt that my older brother and sister had deserted me, leaving me at home alone. …
What I am suggesting to you is that most people feel abandonment during their lifetime, and there are certain normal feelings that go with feeling abandoned or deserted. Those feelings are often sadness, disappoint, anger, and even rage. These feelings are all normal and human. … These feelings have nothing to do with I.Q; those feelings are not necessarily rational or intelligent. Feelings just are. Such feelings are often directed at the person who abandoned you.
Sometimes during life, we can all feel abandoned by God. This happens in life, especially when tragedies happen to you personally. Let me give you some examples. From the Old Testament, King David wrote the famous words in Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Words from King David. His words continue: “why are you so far from saving me Lord? Why are you so far from my groaning? Why do I cry out to you, but you do not answer?”
King David had these feelings in his heart that God had forsaken him, abandoned him, deserted him. Why? Because of the personal tragedies of his life. King David felt this way because King Saul was trying to kill him, his enemies were trying to kill him, his oldest son was trying to kill him, his family didn’t turn out very well. David was feeling down in the dumps and he wrote: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
King David felt that God had deserted him.
It is not only people in the Old Testament who feel that God has abandoned them. Many contemporary Christians also feel that God has abandoned them. For example, young Elie Weisel experienced the silence of God when his family was burned in a German concentration camp and he felt all alone in the world and forsaken by God. Knowing that people experience that they are abandoned by their loved ones and that they feel they are abandoned by God, it is with these feelings that we approach the Gospel story for tonight.
The setting for tonight’s sermon is Golgotha, the place of execution right outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was Friday, the day after Passover. The text tells us that Jesus on the cross for three hours, from twelve noon to three o’clock.
The sky turned dark and black, the darkest day of human history, and so did Jesus’ heart. It was three o’clock on that Friday afternoon and Jesus was coming closer to his death. The Bible tells us that Jesus cried out with a shrieking shout. His voice wasn’t quiet and soft like the first three words. You could barely hear him pray, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Jesus spoke gently to the thief on the cross: Today you will be with me in paradise. Jesus spoke in subdued tones to his mother and his best friend beneath the cross. And then, Jesus reached into his soul and shouted to the heavens at the top of his lungs, in almost a scream, so the Greek tells us: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabach-thani. The words are in Aramaic, his native tongue. Eloi, Eloi. My strong God, my strong God, why have you abandoned me, why have you deserted me, why have you forsaken me?
What can we learn from Jesus’ cry to God?
The first thing we learn is this: it is OK to have feelings and vent those feelings of abandonment, as Jesus did on the cross. To feel the pain and sadness of being abandoned by God is normal. That is the way God made us, to feel such feelings and to vent such feelings. It is OK to feel depressed and abandoned by God.
So when you have such feelings that God has abandoned you, and you vent those feelings, remember that you are in the good company of King David and Jesus the Son of God. When you personally lose a loved one due to death or them moving away and you feel sadness, disappointment and down in the dumps about your situation and you cry out to God with your feelings, remember that this is OK. King David did it. Jesus, the Son of God, did it.
The second thing we learn tonight from Jesus’ word is this: even in the worst situations o life, we are to cling to God with both hands as Jesus did. Even in the worst situations of life, we are to cling to God with both hands.
For me, the best sermon on this text was written by Charles Spurgeon in 1872. Charles Spurgeon was one of the greatest preachers of all time, living in London, England, in the late 1800s. Spurgeon said that in Jesus’ darkest hour with darkness all around him and within him, Jesus still clung to God with both hands. His left hand said, “My God.” His right hand said, “My God.” Eloi. Eloi. My God, my God, was Jesus clinging to God with both hands in the midst of this horrific situation. Jesus clung to God with all his might during the darkest hour of his life.
Spurgeon went on to say that it is easy to believe in God when life smiles on you, but it is much more difficult to believe in God when life frowns on you. It is easy to believe in God when you are wearing silver slippers and the path is smooth and easy; but it is much more difficult to believe in God when your feet are blistered and the path is rocky.
Sometimes, life can be incredibly hard. In the worst and darkest day of human history, Jesus still clung to God with both hands and held onto God. We are to cling to God in our darkest days.
And what are the darkest days of human history, when the sky was blackest?
Was it 200 million people killed by Hitler, Stalin and Mao during World War II? Was that the darkest time of human history?
Or the 137,000,000 people killed by the Black Plagues in the 6th, 14th and 17th centuries?
Or the 100 million people in southern Africa infected with the AIDS virus by the year 2005?
Or the 25-30 million people killed in the United States in 1918 by a flu epidemic after World War I?
Or when six million Jews were exterminated in gas chambers during World War II?
Or what the worst day of human history?
When there was more than 23,000 casualties in one day in the battle of Antietem, during the American Civil War?
Was it September 11th when 3,000 civilians were killed in one hour?
Is it with the present coronavirus pandemic where there are so many deaths and disruption across the world and things are expected to get so much worse?
Was it the day that the Son of God was executed?
In all of those horrific tragedies, we are invited to do what Jesus did in that darkest hour: Jesus clung to God with both hands, crying out to the heavens, shouting his despair, “ My God, My God, both hands grabbing God, where are you? Why aren’t you here to protect us?” So on God’s Friday, you find Jesus clinging to God with all his power, with both hands, and at the same time, shouting his inner feelings up to God. We are invited to do the same. Cling to God with both hands and shout our inner feelings to God in the highest.
The third thing we learn from Jesus’ word on the cross is that these are not his last words. The drama does not end with his depression and emotional exhaustion. “Why have you forsaken me?” These are not his last words, not his final words, not the end of the story. King David wrote the 22nd psalm, “My God my God, why have you forsaken me.” But he also wrote the next psalm, the 23rd psalm, “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.” The 22nd psalm was not his last word.
So also with Jesus. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” Eloi. Eloi. These were not his last words. His last words were “It is accomplished. It is finished. It is done.” He also said, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.”
Jesus triumphed over sin and evil on the cross. On the cross paying for the sins of the world He experienced extreme isolation from God his heavenly Father. This isolation was the worst aspect of the suffering of the cross however Jesus came through it all because of His great love for us and rose on Easter Sunday.
Easter always trumps Good Friday.