"... My God, My God, why have you forsaken me..."
Jesus was told right up front that he was God's beloved Son, "with whom I am completely blessed." (Matthew 3:17). He was told those same words mid-way through his ministry. "Listen to him!" (Matthew 17) He was affirmed as the Son of God, One with the Father, in complex relationship with the Father and the Spirit, throughout his entire life. There was no doubt that Jesus was God's Son.
Yet today, in the bleakest of days, he hangs questioning everything he has ever known.
Somewhere deep inside, he knows who he is in God's will. But today his experience couldn't speak more contrary. Yet he still calls God, "MY God." Though God had forsaken him. Jesus doesn't forsake his God. Though a "Forsaken God," still his God all the same.
No matter what.
Our darkest experiences, our greatest pains, our most disorientating chaos do nothing to remove, deny, or intimidate the Lordship of Christ, nor his Sacred History in our life. He reigns on the Peaks. He remains in the Valleys. He is not shaken by Creation's Doubt, but is drawn all the more into it in order to resurrect the remains of the Day. At our worse, he is his best. At our best, he is still his best. Independent and blended. He remains faithful, when we are not.
As we follow Jesus into his crucifixion we will also utter these same words, "My God... Why have you forsaken me?" They need to be uttered, to be believed, or it is not a true crucifixion.
They need not be said in guilt, believing that God becomes something less than God when we voice our angst questioning whether he even still exists. It is in our complete unraveling that God drapes us in his Glory. We have finally come to the Cross, as did our Lord. We have finally voiced our deepest fears - that God has left the House. We have nothing more.
We have been Crucified.
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