Morning
Time: 10:12 AM PST
"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" --Psalm 22:1
We here behold the Saviour in the depth of His sorrows. No other place so
well shows the griefs of Christ as Calvary, and no other moment at Calvary is so
full of agony as that in which His cry rends the air--"My God, my God, why hast
Thou forsaken me?" At this moment physical weakness was united with acute mental
torture from the shame and ignominy through which He had to pass; and to make
His grief culminate with emphasis, He suffered spiritual agony surpassing all
expression, resulting from the departure of His Father's presence. This was the
black midnight of His horror; then it was that He descended the abyss of
suffering. No man can enter into the full meaning of these words. Some of us
think at times that we could cry, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?" There are seasons when the brightness of our Father's smile is eclipsed by
clouds and darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsake us.
It is only a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ's case it was a real
forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father's love; but the real
turning away of God's face from His Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony
which it caused Him?
In our case, our cry is often dictated by unbelief: in His case, it was the
utterance of a dreadful fact, for God had really turned away from Him for a
season. O thou poor, distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God's
face, but art now in darkness, remember that He has not really forsaken thee.
God in the clouds is as much our God as when He shines forth in all the lustre
of His grace; but since even the thought that He has forsaken us gives us
agony, what must the woe of the Saviour have been when He exclaimed, "My God, my
God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"