My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? 
                                                                                       Psalm 22:1

David penned those words, Jesus repeated them on the cross, and I … well honestly, I often wonder the same.  David goes on to ask, ‘Why are you so far from me, so far from the words of my groaning?’  It’s perhaps even more of a quandary now, in this day of grace, when Jesus promised that he would be with us always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28::20). 

Was Jesus lying?  Or have I maybe just done something so bad that He has finally given up on me?  How do I, living in the twenty first century with all of my own personal crises come to terms with those two divergent realities: Jesus’ promise to be with me and my sense that He is not.  Surely He has heard my groanings, surely He has seen my need.

I think where we usually land is on the second conclusion, that we must have done something, or not done something.  And there may be some truth in that.  Surely sin, lack of discipline, distractions and the like really do result in the consequences of missing what He is up to and of sensing the absence of Jesus in our lives.  Yet, even that doesn’t answer all of our questions. What about that presence of the righteousness of Christ in us?  What about the Holy Spirit that Paul assures us groans and intercedes for us even when we don’t know what to pray?  It is actually in my weakness that Jesus promises to be the strongest.

As always, Jesus is our example here.  As His time on the cross is coming to a close and as death was certain and deliverance seemed distant if not non-existent, our King declares, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’ (Luke 23:46), for as David had proclaimed later in that 22nd Psalm, ‘He has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one.’ (v. 24). 
 
Jesus understood that His Father was up to something, something much larger than His temporary circumstances, something that would transcend all that He may or may not understand or feel at the time.  You see, Jesus really has been tempted in every way that we have, with every fear and doubt that we have, and I ... well I need only to look to the resurrection and understand that I need not to fear, for He is with me always.

To the King,

David