A Grief Celebrated

(Psalm 22 & Mark 15:34)

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” These words reveal the despair, the anguish our Lord felt as He was dying on the cross. We've been taught to say “He died for our (my) sins.” As I come to understand sin -- and it's a very difficult matter to understand -- I'm gradually beginning to make some sense of this confession. Most people, I think, just pass it off as one of those things we say because it's one of those things we say.

One thing we never say, and it's just as important, is that Christ died with us: not just for us, but with us in our death. We all die, good or bad, sinner or saint, Jew or Gentile or Muslim. Christ wants to be with us at that moment.

In the 1940's, an English cleric asked his congregation, “Do you believe the wafer you hold in your hand to be the body of Christ?” They answered, “We do. What we have a hard time believing is that it's bread.”

We've been taught from the ground up that Jesus was God. We know He was God incarnate, but the “incarnate” part is forgotten, even in the gospels. Example: We begin the record of His life with the virgin birth. We read of a series of miracles, and conclude with His resurrection from death. The result may well be for some of us that the fact that Jesus was God is all important.

Yet Jesus went to great lengths to assure us that He was truly flesh and blood Man. The first job of the apostles was to assure people that Jesus was human. He obeyed the customs of His people and the Law as He interpreted it. He was with people most of the time, and in close contact. He lived with them.

And in His death He was as we shall be perhaps; He felt alone. Dying and the moment of death are likely to be a lonely time. His words, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” speak to me of that feeling of abandonment many people experience. These words speak to be most eloquently of His humanity.

He wanted to live with us as a man and He wants to die with us -- to be with us as we die -- to lead us through death. He wants us to know He understands what it is like to feel alone.

We can celebrate that.

 

Father Harold Strickland

 

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