Sermon from March 17, 2002
Shortly after September 11, one of my fellow pastors here in New Castle County called me to talk about the prayer service they were having at their church, and to find out what BVBC was doing to respond to the president's call for a national day of prayer and remembrance. He said, "I am discovering that the attacks are shaking people's faith." At bottom, that threat to people's faith comes from one of the toughest questions for Christian people. If God is loving and if God is all-powerful, why doesn't He just put a stop to evil before it damages people?

The question implies that God should step in and prevent people from carrying out horrible deeds against other people. He should interfere with their freedom. When He does not, people have the feeling that God is sitting at a great distance, unaffected by our suffering. The question itself is hard, and the picture of God that goes with it makes it even harder, and we need some answers. I don't have all the answers. I do have some that deserve our attention. We find them in Mark 15.

Do you remember the dark saying of Jesus in Mark 2:20? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day they will fast. In chapters 14-15 with restraint and at the same time at remarkable length Mark tells us how the Bridegroom is taken away from those who have invested their hopes in Him.

We have followed that story from the murderous intention of some religious leaders through their unexpected alliance with Judas to the Grand Jury hearing in the quarters of the High Priest to the travesty of justice at the hands of Pilate to the flogging, the harsh mockery of Roman soldiers, and at last to the crucifixion. Today, Mark takes us to the threshold of the mysteriiof the universe in verses 33-39.

Verse 33 says, At the sixth hour (that is noon by our reckoning) darkness (appropriate to the mystery at hand) came over the whole land until the ninth hour. Then, verse 34 says, And at the ninth hour (three o'clock in the afternoon) Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" – which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" What are we to make of this heart-rending cry?

Of the seven last words of Christ on the cross this is the only one that the Gospel of Mark includes. The language comes from Psalm 22:1 and becomes the language in which Jesus expresses something of the horror going on in His own soul. That internal horror becomes hallowed ground where we must look for answers to our question about a good God and evil in the world He created.

German theologian, Jürgen Moltmann, has written (The Crucified God, 153), "Every theology which claims to be Christian must come to terms with Jesus' cry on the cross." Coming to terms with that cry of abandonment begins with what it meant to Jesus and to us, and it is possible to misunderstand what it meant to Him. Misunderstanding marks the next two verses, 35-36.

When some of those standing near heard this, they said, "Listen, he's calling Elijah." The Semitic words, "Eloi, Eloi," sounded to some of the bystanders like the Semitic word for the great Jewish prophet, Elijah.

One man, misunderstanding it in just this way, ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. "Now leave him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down," he said. He missed the point.

By including Jesus' heart-rending words Mark has made them available to all subsequent generations for reflection. They merit reflection, if we are to find in them answers to our questions about a good God and evil in the world He created.

First, we must not hurry past the source of Jesus' heart-rending words. He learned them from Psalm 22:1. It is a faithful saying and worthy of attention that the Bible gathers more dust than any other bestseller. More than one person in personal distress has said to me, "Don't quote the Bible to me."

If you ever say that to me, I will do my best to minister God's word to you in your distress in some other way. But I want you to know that the Lord whome we acclaim immersed Himself in the Bible. Why do you suppose He did that? Why do you think I do that? It is because we find here in the Book the wisdom of God for human life.

This is not a storybook for children. It invites us to bring all our experience and all our maturity to the reading of its pages, and it promises that we will find therein wisdom for life. Where do you go to find wisdom? Who gives you categories of thought with which to bring order and meaning to the overwhelming torrent of human experience? What wisdom stands the test, when the human heart cries out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

It is easy to forget that in moments of great suffering, only the most deeply held values survive. Jesus Himself said one time, "Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks," (Matt. 12:24). His heart overflowed with the wisdom of God on the cross, and He learned those words in scripture.

It does not matter that parts of the Bible are hard to understand and parts are boring. Life is sometimes hard to understand, and life is sometimes boring. Embedded mostly in story form, this wisdom from the mind of God has been given into the hands of mankind. Jesus read it, memorized parts of it, and came to interpret life through the grid of divine wisdom that He found in it.

Put down the New York Times. Put down Newsweek. Turn off the television. Identify the prejudices of your adult mind toward the Bible, and have done with them. Bring all your questions and all your experiences to the reading of scripture, and prepare to drink deeply at the well of God's wisdom.

If you wonder how God's people have handled threats to their national security, read Jeremiah. If you want to learn how human emotion and devotion to God find realistic expression together, read the Psalms. If you want to be wise about daily affairs, read Proverbs. If you want to peer down into the volcanic crater from which Christianity has come, read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. If you want images of how the whole show will end, read the book of Revelation. Fill your heart with the thoughts of God.

Christ did, and what came out leads us to a second reflection on His heart-rending cry from the cross. Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" – which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Everyone says it is a cry of abandonment by God, but think, just think for a minute about the way scripture taught Jesus to express it.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It is still my God that Jesus calls to. If God had forsaken Him, He had not forsaken God. And in His abandonment by God, like Job of old, He questions God. "Why have you forsaken me?" "I have been faithful to you, why are you now unfaithful to me? You call me the Son whom you love, and I call you my Father; how does a Father forsake His only beloved Son?"

Every confused, suffering soul that has ever asked God, "Why me?" or "Why now?" or "Why this way?" finds himself in the company of the Son of God. It is not blasphemy to ask thus. It may be the only act of faith of which a person is capable. Boris Pasternak said one time, "Living life to the end is not a childish task," (Doctor Zhivago). It should come as no surprise that poor human beings find themselves at times nearly undone by the sufferings of life and wonder why.

To ask the Creator of all things, "Why?" may seem like a faint squeak in this vast universe, except that the Son of God uttered the same cry. His question gives our question dignity, not only as humanity counts dignity but also dignity in heaven before God to whom we address our anguish.

We must also remember that heaven was silent in response to that question. No relief comes from His suffering; no answers come to relieve even a little of His darkness. Dignity there may be; answers there are not. The silence of heaven greets the anguish of earth, and all is dark. Whether Mark embeds the kernel of an answer in the story he has told brings us to reflect one more time on Jesus' heart-rending cry from the cross.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" We hear those words and reflect on what being forsaken by God mean to Jesus, and we are right to do so. We need to reflect on something else. How did God receive that heart-rending cry? What did it cost Him to forsake His Son? Let's see how the Gospel of Mark can help.

Twice, at Jesus' baptism in chapter one and on the Mount of Transfiguration in chapter nine, God calls Jesus, "My Son, whom I love." What reality in the life of God is expressed by the word Son and by the word love? If our experience is any guide to the life of God, those words express a powerful attachment.

When I ask myself, "Under what conditions a human father would forsake a son whom he loves?" those conditions are difficult to imagine. Supposing that we could imagine them, it is staggering to imagine what it would feel like to be a father that forsakes his son. It is even more staggering if the father in question has the power to prevent his son from being forsaken and yet forsakes him. Let's take these two staggering scenarios and think about them.

What would it feel like to be a father that forsakes his son? Most of us have intimations of what that would feel like. With those intimations in mind let's think about 3:00 p.m. on Good Friday. God watches His Son suffer and die. He does not prevent it. Does God suffer in that moment?

Can God suffer? For generations Christians and other theologians have said that God cannot suffer, because God cannot change. Such change would bring Him down to our level, and that is blasphemy. I agree that God cannot suffer like we do, as when something alien to us invades our body and makes us ill or kills us.

But if God loves, if He enters into relationship with other beings, does He not open Himself up to the possibility of being disappointed by those other beings? Can we say that God is love and then deny that He suffers when someone spurns His love? Can we say that God is love and then deny that He suffers when He forsakes the Son He loves?

If God suffers, we may still question why He made this world with its possibility of evil; but we can no longer accuse Him of being aloof from the world's suffering. Isn't that what the atheist fears more than anything else: "the indifference of God and his retreat from the world of men?" (Moltmann, 221).

After Good Friday, no one can say that. "The Son suffers and dies on the cross. The Father suffers with him, but not in the same way," (Moltmann, 203). Not in the same way, but He suffers, and dare anyone say that He suffers less than we do? In His eternity in a way that is appropriate to His essential nature, He participates with us in suffering. That takes some of the sting out of the question with which this sermon is concerned, but not all the sting.

We have tried to imagine what it would feel like to the Father that forsakes His Son. But the effort is even more staggering, if the Father in question has the power to prevent His Son from being forsaken and yet forsakes Him, It raises again the question that has been particularly daunting in the modern world. If God is good and powerful, why does He allow evil to befall? In particular, why does He allow evil to befall His Son?

Either He cannot stop the evil, and then something is stronger than God, and our world is in danger of divine weakness; or He will not stop the evil, and then we begin to wonder if there is evil in the essential nature of God, and our existence is threatened in an even deeper way. I reject at once the notion that God is too weak to act. That is an idea that contradicts scirpture, and it has never found a place other than at the fringes of Christian thought. The dilemma that torments the modern world assumes that God is all-powerful and that He chooses not to intervene to stop human evil.

I agree that God does not always intervene to stop human evil. I reject at once the notion that He refuses because in some way He Himself is evil. Someone who has the power to stop evil may refuse to do so for good reasons.

For example, a father, sending his son off to war, knowing he could die in combat, is not an evil father. It is possible for father and son to agree on that course of action that may prove to be lethal to the son; and if the son dies, both suffer, and we do not accuse the father. But of course that depends on the cause he dies for being a good cause.

Suppose the events of Good Friday, including the forsaking of the Son, served a good purpose. And what would that good purpose be? I suspect you already have an answer to that question, but let me give you another way to think about it. God created the world in such a way that human sin brought about death and misery in all forms. If God is not to remain aloof from this world He created, what is He to do?

The Christian Gospel says that in a mystery He submitted to the very conditions He had created. In particular He sent His Son in flesh and blood. Under the conditions He had created the Son is rejected, tortured and crucified. The Father, who could rescue Him, does not. By refusing to do so, He forsakes him. Could He have done differently? What if God holds back what He requires of us? What if God spares His Son but does not spare us? He does not hold back. He did not spare. The result is the redemption of our existence. God took His own medicine, (Dorothy Sayers).

Again, we can say that after Good Friday, no one can say otherwise. "The son suffers and dies on the cross. The Father suffers with him, but not in the same way," (Moltmann, 203). Not in the same way, but He suffers, and dare anyone say that he suffers less than we do? In His eternity in a way that is appropriate to His essential nature, He participates with us in suffering. That does not remove our suffering, but it takes the sting out of the question with which this sermon is concerned.

Then, says verse 37-39, With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The way to God was now open for humanity. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, "Surely this man was the Son of God!"

Now, go and learn the meaning of these words: If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?