My God, My God, Why...?

Now the earth was formless and empty; darkness was over the surface of the deep...(Genesis 1:2)

Then the Lord said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand toward the sky so that darkness will spread over Egypt - darkness that can be felt."  So Moses stretched out his hand toward the sky, and total darkness covered all Egypt for three days. (Exodus 10:21,22)

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.  About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" (Matthew 27:45,46)

Darkness...

     heavy,

       crushing,

         so thick it can be felt...

A loud voice crying out...

     piercing the darkness,

       "My God, My God, why?

         Why have You forsaken Me?"

From the depths of His soul Jesus cried out to God.
It is the only time in the gospels He did not use the intimate term 'Father'. 

"Why have You forsaken Me?"

It wasn't a whisper.

It was a scream.

The full weight of sin - all of it - on His shoulders.

My God, My God...Why?

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His one and only Son,

that whoever believes in Him shall not perish

but have eternal life."

John 3:16

The Full Extent of His Love

"It was just before the Passover feast.  Jesus knew that the time had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father.  Having loved His own who were in the world, He now showed them the full extent of His love... He got up from the meal, took off His outer garment and wrapped a towel around His waist... poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciples' feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around Him."  (John 13:1-5)

John's gospel is my favorite.  In it I discover a deeply intimate portrait of the love of Christ, especially as John writes about the Passover meal Jesus shared with His disciples in the Upper Room just hours before His crucifixion. 

Did you know that John never referred to himself as "the disciple Jesus loved" until after Jesus washed his feet that last meal?  Penning his gospel decades later I think John grasped it - the full extent of His love - as he remembered this last night with our Lord.  Jesus, knowing His death was imminent, chose to kneel before His disciples and wash their feet.

Picture it with me:

Jesus removes His outer garment - the one with tassels all Jewish men wore symbolizing God's authority.  In its place He wraps the towel of a servant around His waist.  Kneeling before each disciple He washes their feet, drying them on the towel.  As He does this He transfers the dirt from each of them onto Himself.

Perhaps John's experience in the Upper Room that last evening brought him to a deeper realization of the full extent ot Jesus' love.  After all, it would not be until he looked back on the evening after the crucifixion that he would realize Jesus also washed the feet of the one who would betray Him - Judas.

A few hours later Jesus would do for us what He had, in a sense symbolically done for His disciples.  The Sinless One who had taken off the robe of a king and put on the garb of a servant willingly transferred the dirt and filth of our lives onto Himself, hanging on a Cross to die, paying a debt He didn't owe, so we could be washed clean by His blood.

"The disciple Jesus loved..."  a simple yet profound identity.

When you stand in the grace of God, that is what you are too...

...the disciple Jesus loves...

The Wonderful Cross

"Love so amazing, so divine,

demands my soul, my life, my all."

(Isaac Watts)

When the Apostle Paul wrote to believers in the city of Corinth he told them he resolved to know nothing while he was among them but Christ, crucified.

I wondered about the imagery his statement must have brought to mind to these early Christians living just a few decades after our Lord's death on the Cross.

Crucifixion was invented by the Greeks and perfected by the Romans.  The historian Josephus tells us around the time Jesus died there were over 900 crucifixions in Jerusalem that year alone. That's about three each day.

Where Rome ruled, crucifixions happened.

Crucifixion was a very graphic picture of the most obscene, cruel and horrific execution known to man.  It was evidence of man's total depravity to even conceive of inventing something so utterly crushing to use on his fellow man.

And yet this is what our Lord chose as His message...the Cross:

"...foolishness to those who are perishing,

but to us who are being saved it is the power of God."

(1Corinthians1:18)

Today we cherish the Cross.  We wear it around our necks.  It adorns the walls of our homes.  We treasure it as the symbol of God's great love for us.  But did you know that until about the 4th century there was no depiction of the Cross in art?  Perhaps the awful image of what crucifixion actually involved was too close a memory for the early church.

Today we celebrate the Cross, as we should.  But in celebrating the work Jesus accomplished for us by His death on the Cross, don't miss the awful cost of a love so amazing, so divine.

It is said in heaven the only man-made things are scars and nail prints.

Passover

Tonight at sundown Jews all over the world will celebrate the Feast of Passover.  It is a festival of remembrance of what God did for Israel when He brought them out of bondage in Egypt by His mighty outstretched arm.  When God saw the blood of a sacrificed lamb covering the door frames of their homes He 'passed over' that household and did not strike down the firstborn as He did throughout the rest of Egypt.  He led them into the desert where they would learn to worship Him. 

It was the birth of the Nation.

The Old Testament is full of stories about what happened next.  The people forgot He is a holy God who demands to be first in the lives of His people.  Time after time we read that His people turned their backs, walked away, chased after other gods. 

There was a price to pay for such rebellion.  There was suffering, defeat and cries that went up to a sky that seemed hard as bronze.  Where was their great Jehovah?  Had He abandoned them? 

When Israel cried out, "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me!" God responded through the prophet Isaiah,  "Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne?  Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands."  (Isaiah 49:15,16 emphasis added)  If a nursing mother forgets her infant her body automatically responds with sore leaky breasts because she bears the reminder of the baby in her body.

So it is with God.  He says He will not forget because His people are engraved on the palms of His hands.  The Hebrew word for engraved is 'haqaq' and it means to cut, take a chisel or a hammer and cut as into a rock. 

I hope you don't pass by the beauty of this meaning.  Our Rock, Jesus Christ, redeemed us on a long-ago Passover.  The same arm that stretched out the heavens in Creation now stretched out on a cross.  Men took a hammer and with it they 'cut' into His hands.  For you.  For me.  We are engraved on His hands.  Just as a nursing mother bears the reminder of her child in her body, our Lord's resurrected body also bears the reminder of His children on His hands.

Do you feel forgotten?  Abandoned?  Have you, like the Israelites, turned your back and walked away, chasing after other gods?  Do you wonder if you can ever come back, if you'll be accepted after yet another failure?  Do you cry out as Israel did, "The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me!"

The Cross beckons:  Come back.  See, I have not forgotten you.  You are engraved on My hands.

There is no time like now, this Season of the Cross, to return to those hands.

Or come for the first time.  You might see your name is engraved there also.

A Parable of Cows

Somewhere deep in Africa there is a village tradition to determine the value of a prospective bride. When a father deems his daughter old enough to be married he announces it to the village.  Over the next week, young men show their desire to marry the girl by tying cows to the father's fence.  The one who ties the most cows to the fence marries the girl.

Of course the more desirable the prospective bride, the more cows a young man offers.  Usually the price for a bride is 2 or 3 cows, but once a young man actually offered 6 cows for a bride - it was a record!

One young man insisted he would marry only when he found an 8-cow wife.  His parents thought he was foolish and would remain unmarried.  There just weren't any brides that valuable.  Yet the young man continued to search, even going to far-off villages.

Finally he sent word home to his family, "I am married.  Found an 8-cow wife in the Village of Honto!"

His parents were puzzled and so were the rest of his village.  They knew all the young women in that village and none were worth 8 cows.

When the young man arrived back home with his new bride, they all wanted to know how he had found an 8-cow bride.

"It was simple", he said.  "I found a bride and then I paid 8 cows for her."

"For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold

that you were bought...but with the precious blood of Christ..."

1Peter1:18, 19

An Offering of Brokenness

For God who said, "Let light shine out of darkness" let His light shine in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.  But we have this treasure in jars of clay...(2Cor.4)

There once was a rabbi who had two large clay pots.  Each hung on the ends of a pole which he carried across his neck down to the stream every day to get water.  One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect.  At the end of his long trek from the stream to his house, the perfect pot was full while the cracked pot only arrived half-full. 

This went on each day for two years.  The perfect pot was proud of its accomplishment, always being full.  But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its imperfection and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do. 

After two years of bitter failure it spoke to the rabbi at the stream, "I am ashamed of myself because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."  The old rabbi smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path but not on the other pot's side?  That is because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path.  Each day we walk back from the stream, you water them.  For two years now I have been enjoying their beauty on my walk.  Without you they would not be there for everyone who passes by to see their glory.

In Old Testament days a clay vessel became impure if something unholy or unclean came in contact with it.  The only way it could be made pure again was to break it.  Then it could be glued back together for service.  Of course, the cracks and chips would most certainly still show, especially when held up to the light.

The Apostle Paul wrote to the early church in Corinth that God made His light to shine in our hearts -  treasure in jars of clay.  He was speaking of our earthly bodies.  We have this treasure in jars that are broken and chipped, cracked by the hurts and concerns, the failures and disappointments, the sins and shortcomings of our lives.  We wonder, perhaps, if God would even want to use us with all our flaws. 

Yet this is where He - the Creator of the Universe - has decided to dwell!

Cracks and all.

Perhaps this Season of Lent is a time to reflect on our brokenness; a time to offer that brokenness to our Lord and ask Him to put us back together. 

And if those cracks and chips of our lives still show when the Light shines through?

Don't you know that light will shine more brightly through your vessel than one that has never been broken at all?