Today's Scripture Reading (September 28, 2025): Psalm 83
Sometimes God just seems to
be so far away. And we have all been there. In fact, even Jesus experienced that
feeling. His friends rejected him. One Apostle had betrayed Him to the very
people who wanted to cause Him harm. And someone who was one of His closest
friends on earth had denied that He even knew Him. In a matter of a few hours,
Jesus was tried and sentenced to death. He was beaten, and then was left hanging
on a crude wooden cross, His body held in place by three large spikes that had
been driven through His flesh and into the wood of the cross.
It is then that Jesus begins
to speak what we have come to understand as the Last Words of Jesus Christ. The
first words he said from the cross were "Father,
forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). Despite
all the suffering he was experiencing, his concern was for those who were
causing his suffering, that they would receive forgiveness.
The following
words were addressed to the criminal hanging next to him. These were words of
assurance. "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in
paradise" (Luke 23:43). Over the centuries, these have been words with
which we have struggled. When combined with the idea of a final judgment where
the sheep are separated from the goats, what exactly are we supposed to take
from these words from the cross?
Next, Jesus
gives familial instructions to His mother and John the Apostle, the only
Apostle who had gathered at the foot of the cross: "Dear woman, here is
your son," and to the disciple, "Here is your mother."
However, it
is the subsequent words that remind us of the silence we sometimes feel from
God. "And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' [which means "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"]"
(Mark 15:34). The words are a direct quote from Psalm 22, and theologians have
argued that in this moment, Jesus took the sins of the world on his shoulders,
and it was a sight that even God had to turn His head away from the cross.
However, I don't
think that makes any sense. God loves us and loves Jesus so much that nothing
can turn His head. But stress can have an effect. Not that it stops God from
speaking to us and helping us, but instead it incapacitates our ability to hear
his still small voice.
The Psalmist
asks God not to remain silent or turn a deaf ear. In this moment, he needs to
hear from God. However, I am convinced that God had never stopped speaking to
the Psalmist. The stress of the moment had stopped the Psalmist from hearing
the words of God. We can find ourselves in the same situation. Don't believe
for a moment that God has stopped speaking to you. In faith, know that God is
still speaking and still moving in our lives, even if stress has been dialed up
to ten and you can no longer hear his still small voice.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Psalm 89
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