SPEAKER_01: Thanks for your presence here and for this beautiful morning.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for the sunshine and for the crisp autumn air.
SPEAKER_01: And would you pray, God, as we enter into this time of or as we've entered into this time of worship, would you continue to give us eyes to see and ears to hear?
SPEAKER_01: Would you speak to us by your spirit this morning?
SPEAKER_01: And as we collectively sort of stand at the edge of this abyss and peer down, would you lead us and guide us?
SPEAKER_01: Would you comfort us and give us uh a sense of your presence?
SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, God, may we be honest with ourselves as we explore this text and and uh be honest with the text itself.
SPEAKER_01: And would you yeah, have your way and your will done in our lives this morning in every way?
SPEAKER_01: And we pray these things in your holy and precious name.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: How are we doing?
SPEAKER_01: Good, good to see you, everybody.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Ryan, I think I've said that already.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the pastor here at Central, and we are in the middle of our almost at the end, actually, of our sermon series called This Isn't Rhetorical.
SPEAKER_01: We're examining several of the questions that Jesus asks.
SPEAKER_01: He asks over 300 of them in the Gospels.
SPEAKER_01: And today's is that we're we got this week and then the following, and then it's already Advent.
SPEAKER_01: So by the way, be thinking about some friends of yours who might want to be invited to to come hang out.
SPEAKER_01: That's at Advent.
SPEAKER_01: I think a lot of folks could use some good news in their lives this Advent season.
SPEAKER_01: So bring them.
SPEAKER_01: Advent's always fun.
SPEAKER_01: We got decorated, you know, we got trees up and lights everywhere.
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty sweet.
SPEAKER_01: So bring them to uh Central for Advent.
SPEAKER_01: But um, this is the question that Jesus asks.
SPEAKER_01: And he asks this question uh all of these ones we've been talking about so far are questions that Jesus asks to his followers or those people who are around him.
SPEAKER_01: And then I've been encouraging you to like ask this same question of yourself.
SPEAKER_01: So like week one, Jesus asks his followers, hey, what do you desire?
SPEAKER_01: What do you want?
SPEAKER_01: And I encourage you to ask that same question of yourself, or let Jesus ask you that question.
SPEAKER_01: This week, though, it's different.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus asks this question of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage you to ask this question also of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this question, I had to include it.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't want to initially, this is really a Good Friday sermon, but I it's like one of the most profound, I think it's the most profound question asked in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Theologically, there's a lot to unpack here.
SPEAKER_01: It's like I think the most theologically poignant scripture in all of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I really do.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and so this morning, may you not hear Jesus ask you this, but may you ask God this.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus asks this question of the Father, the Father whom he loved and trusted and whom he knew deeply, intimately well.
SPEAKER_01: And I encourage you to also ask this question this morning of God the Father.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: And here it is, uh, as you heard read, about three in the afternoon, Jesus cries out in a loud voice.
SPEAKER_01: Actually, my friend Peter just reminded me, too, that this is in Aramaic that he cries out this cry.
SPEAKER_01: And Aramaic was the sort of the every man's tongue.
SPEAKER_01: It was sort of the the language of the street.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't in Greek and it wasn't in Hebrew, he's speaking here.
SPEAKER_01: This was like everyday ordinary language that somehow from the depths of his heart in his native tongue, Jesus cries out, Eli, Eli, Lemasabactani, which means my God, my God, and why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: So this morning I do want to give you permission to ask this same question from the deepest parts of your heart of God.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: I think I told many of you, but about a month and a month and a week ago or so, my dad died.
SPEAKER_01: My my dad, his name was Fred.
SPEAKER_01: And um we flew down there, I did anyway.
SPEAKER_01: My I flew down there, my sister and my brother, my stepbrother flew down to Texas to visit my my mom and my dad as he was dying.
SPEAKER_01: And uh I got there on a Saturday morning, I think it was.
SPEAKER_01: I got into town, and by the time I got there, he was already pretty drugged up, he was pretty sedated.
SPEAKER_01: He he'd had MS since he was uh in his 30s.
SPEAKER_01: And as you know, maybe MS, as you if you get it when you're younger, it sort of progresses more slowly.
SPEAKER_01: But the last couple of years have been really hard.
SPEAKER_01: And the last couple of months, and then of course the last few weeks before he died, it was really, really tough.
SPEAKER_01: And um, and when I got there, he was already sedated under medication because he was in such severe pain.
SPEAKER_01: And I realized I'm like, oh, I probably won't ever hear his voice again at this moment.
SPEAKER_01: And and um, which reminded me of back the week prior, and I th it took me a while to figure it out, but I had to think about when when did I last talk to him?
SPEAKER_01: Did I hear his voice?
SPEAKER_01: And it was a phone call I had with my mom and him, and they would often call me on like, you know, they'd be on the same phone together, and then I'd in the same room, and I'd be on the other line on the other end.
SPEAKER_01: And we were talking, and my mom was like, Yeah, we're having hospice come and take care of him, and we were kind of joking around, and my dad always had a good humor about dying.
SPEAKER_01: And he uh and I said to him, Now, Dad, I said, Don't let her shove you off the cliff too soon, okay?
SPEAKER_01: We're not ready to go yet.
SPEAKER_01: And he laughed and we all had a laugh, and and uh, but that was the last conversation I really had back and forth with him.
SPEAKER_01: Uh because when I got there on that Saturday morning, he was already pretty, pretty drugged up.
SPEAKER_01: And uh it was a weird week to say the least.
SPEAKER_01: Uh and I, you know, we did a lot of things that week.
SPEAKER_01: He died on Tuesday night, but Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then on Tuesday, we we sat with him a lot.
SPEAKER_01: We prayed together, uh, we laughed some, we cried some.
SPEAKER_01: We actually watched the Broncos game that Monday night together.
SPEAKER_01: And uh it was me and my brother, and then he was in bed laying down there, he was sleeping, but and um we kind of ebbed and flowed in and out of laughing and crying and praying, and and uh but it was a weird week.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you've been present with someone like that when they have died, but it's like the whole week was kind of this foggy experience for me.
SPEAKER_01: And even when I got down there, I didn't really know how to feel.
SPEAKER_01: It's like I didn't know what to how to make sense of any of those things that were happening, and you're kind of waiting for this person to die, but you also don't want them to die, but you also know they won't get any better.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're just kind of waiting, and every day unfolded like the day before.
SPEAKER_01: We had no plans, we just sat with them and waited.
SPEAKER_01: And and um, I didn't sleep a whole lot.
SPEAKER_01: I my sleep was kind of interrupted.
SPEAKER_01: I I had a pull-out couch I was sleeping on, and I swear those things are invented by someone who likes to torture human beings because there's like a bar strategically placed right under the back, like it's right there.
SPEAKER_01: It's you're like you got this bar in your back and you can't really sleep at all.
SPEAKER_01: And so I was already kind of in this foggy, hazy kind of way because I couldn't sleep a whole lot and didn't sleep really well.
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, because um because he was dying.
SPEAKER_01: And so it was a weird week.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking like this week, it was just a month ago or so, like I didn't, I don't, I don't remember feeling anything.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm honest, I just remember feeling quite numb.
SPEAKER_01: Like I didn't feel anything.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I I think I felt sadness in here and there, but I just remember being present with them and my dad, and and I just felt overwhelmingly numb.
SPEAKER_01: Which then, of course, if you know me, I started getting in, I got into my own head about this.
SPEAKER_01: Why do I feel numb?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't I feel anything?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't I feel more sad?
SPEAKER_01: Why am I not crying?
SPEAKER_01: And I started to try to work it out in my head and rationalize all of this, which only makes you not be able to feel even more.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01: Like the more you go into your head, the less you can kind of feel in your body.
SPEAKER_01: And I just got even number because I couldn't feel and I didn't know how or why I couldn't feel, and I couldn't make sense of any of it.
SPEAKER_01: And um, part of the confusion was he was actually my stepdad.
SPEAKER_01: My mom and he met when I was about six years old, right at the tail end of the divorce with my birth father.
SPEAKER_01: And um so I'd known him since I was six or seven years old.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't get married, they dated for a long time, on and off, and so he was present throughout my whole life until I, you know, from when I was six until I was until now.
SPEAKER_01: But they didn't get married until about 02.
SPEAKER_01: And at that point, I was already kind of a grown adult, but but he was there for a lot of my life, and I knew him very, very well.
SPEAKER_01: But I was always kind of confused, like, what is he to me?
SPEAKER_01: Is he like my dad?
SPEAKER_01: And should I call him dad?
SPEAKER_01: He's a stepdad, but is he my real dad?
SPEAKER_01: And what does it mean to have a real dad?
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean to be a real parent?
SPEAKER_01: Do you have to be a biological parent to be a real parent?
SPEAKER_01: And what does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: And all these questions are kind of going through my mind, and like, who was this man to me?
SPEAKER_01: And I know it was something deeply profound and impactful, but like, what was it exactly?
SPEAKER_01: And who was he, and why couldn't I feel anything?
SPEAKER_01: And then he died on Tuesday night, and um, they came and got him that night and took him uh to the uh to the the place called Neptune, and and then uh I stayed the next day.
SPEAKER_01: My sister and my stepbrother flew home on Wednesday morning, and I was able to be with my mom for about another day and a half, and I flew home Thursday, got home and kind of got back to normal life here, but I just still couldn't settle in.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been there too, and just couldn't really figure out what I was doing and didn't know how to feel, still couldn't feel a whole lot.
SPEAKER_01: And then Katie, my wife, was like, I'm gonna fly down to uh Texas uh to be with your mom.
SPEAKER_01: And so Katie, excuse me, um, I think on Sunday flew down there and and was gonna be with my mom for a few days.
SPEAKER_01: And so she did, and then you know, Katie's kind of like my anchor.
SPEAKER_01: So when she left, I was like even more discombobulated, like, what am I doing and what's going on?
SPEAKER_01: And I had to go to work.
SPEAKER_01: And and then Katie flew back, I think it was on Wednesday, Wednesday night.
SPEAKER_01: And I got home from work on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: I was pretty tired.
SPEAKER_01: Like I just was feeling overwhelmingly tired and just like exhausted.
SPEAKER_01: And like I had been tired for a long time.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm like, I'm gonna lay down for just a minute.
SPEAKER_01: And my girls were at home, and I had to go pick up Katie up.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'm gonna leave at eight o'clock to be there by nine o'clock, because her flight landed before that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I'll be there at nine o'clock and I'll leave at eight o'clock, and so I'm gonna sleep up until eight.
SPEAKER_01: If I sleep at all, I'm like, I'm just gonna lay down though, because I was so, I was just so tired.
SPEAKER_01: And I laid down and my girls were in the room, and then the next thing I knew, um, they had left, they went to go get some culvers or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And the next thing I knew, they were waking me up.
SPEAKER_01: And I was in this deep sleep.
SPEAKER_01: Like, Dad, aren't you supposed to go get mom?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm gonna leave at eight.
SPEAKER_01: I've got to be there at nine.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, Dad, it's nine right now.
SPEAKER_01: I was tired.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I was tired.
SPEAKER_01: And the technical term is like, oops.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, oh gosh.
SPEAKER_01: So I jumped up and I and they were like, she's on the phone.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, I had no time to talk.
SPEAKER_01: I ran out the door, grabbed the keys, and got in the car, and like I was racing down to the airport, and I was again, I was in this fog.
SPEAKER_01: I it it was the sun was up and I went to bed, or when I laid down and then it was dark and I woke up, which is like you're like, when that happens, it's like, what planet am I on?
SPEAKER_01: And and I was half awake, I was trying to wake myself up because my body was just like my body just felt tired to the core.
SPEAKER_01: And I drove to the airport and uh and I called her on the way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, Katie, I'm sorry, I'm I'll be there.
SPEAKER_01: I just fell asleep, I don't know what happened, and I was just exhausted.
SPEAKER_01: And got there and she was extremely graceful and and uh got in the car and we drove home.
SPEAKER_01: And she was talking about the week and how it went with my mom and how she's doing and how they packed up some things of his and kind of organized the life a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: And then she said, Um, yeah, we started talking about some old voicemails that he had left her.
SPEAKER_01: And she's like, I've got some.
SPEAKER_01: Do you want to hear some?
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, I'd love to hear that.
SPEAKER_01: And if you know Katie, my dad loved Katie.
SPEAKER_02: My dad met her when we started dating.
SPEAKER_01: And um he loved her like a lot.
SPEAKER_01: And if you've ever been loved by somebody unconditionally, you're like, what a gift that is to have someone love you for no reason.
SPEAKER_01: And um, so yeah, he loved her that way.
SPEAKER_01: He was fond of Katie, and Katie was of him too, for those reasons, and he was just so good to her.
SPEAKER_01: And so she had kept these old voicemails from him.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, yeah, let's let's hear it.
SPEAKER_01: And all the while it's it's dark, my emotions are probably right down in here somewhere, and I've been feeling numb for over a week.
SPEAKER_01: I'm exhausted, and it's we're driving home, I had to race down there, and and she starts playing these voice messages for me of him talking to her.
SPEAKER_01: And like all of a sudden, wham, it just hit me.
SPEAKER_01: And I started crying, like crying, like hard crying.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01: And it just like all the things that were down there just came up.
SPEAKER_01: And I kept crying, and Katie put her hand on me and was like, Are you all right?
SPEAKER_01: And I started like bawling, like bawling and bawling and bawling to the point where she was like, Hey, do you want to pull over?
SPEAKER_01: You alright?
SPEAKER_01: And I was actually thinking the same thing, maybe I should pull over and like what is going on?
SPEAKER_01: And like all this stuff just sort of started coming out.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, we made it home safely, and then that night went to bed, and next day or the next few days, I forget which, I was in the office here at work, and I was in my office, and just all of a sudden, again, wham, just overwhelmed with something.
SPEAKER_01: And I started crying again, and Katie walked into the office and like, You all right?
SPEAKER_01: Like, I don't think I am.
SPEAKER_01: I remember talking to my counselor, and my counselor finally nailed it.
SPEAKER_01: He goes, You know, Ryan, whatever you think of him, I think that he was the most significant man in your life.
SPEAKER_01: I was like, Yeah, that's probably true.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I told my counselor, I go, I thought there's like this abyss, um, like down in here somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: And like down in there is like like all the sadness I've ever experienced, and like loneliness and despair and existential angst and uh like darkness, like this abyss, it's just down there.
SPEAKER_01: And I was on the edge, and then Fred dying to sort of like kick me into the abyss.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, I don't want to go in there because I don't know what's down there.
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's down there?
SPEAKER_01: Except for nothingness and brokenness or emptiness or nothing or absence.
SPEAKER_01: Like, what's down there?
SPEAKER_01: And my counselor was like, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you you gotta go down there.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever emotions, whatever feelings come, you gotta let them come.
SPEAKER_01: Let them come.
SPEAKER_01: And you've gotta go down there and see what's down in there.
SPEAKER_01: What's down in there?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And maybe you've felt like this before.
SPEAKER_01: Like on the edge of this abyss of sadness or or emptiness or brokenness or darkness or despair.
SPEAKER_01: And you can like peer over the edge into this abyss, and what's down there?
SPEAKER_01: What's in there?
SPEAKER_01: And it feels like nothingness, absence, maybe even the absence of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I've learned in my time as a pastor, I've been a pastor for about 10 years now, I've learned that this is a very, very common experience for all of us.
SPEAKER_01: Most of us, and if you haven't yet, get ready, have experienced some level of this kind of suffering or pain or lostness or loneliness or despair or what Soren Kierkegaard calls existential despair or anxiety or angst.
SPEAKER_01: And like this abyss of just nothingness.
SPEAKER_01: And it's sort of part of our experience that we have staring off in this abyss.
SPEAKER_01: And my counselor told me, yeah, that's what it means to be a human, Ryan.
SPEAKER_01: This is part of the human contract that we have.
SPEAKER_01: That somehow, for some reason, part of life is like this, it's feeling these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: And the more you try to avoid them, the more you're actually denying your own humanity.
SPEAKER_01: And folks who don't feel these things are not truly fully human.
SPEAKER_01: It's part of the human experience, this lostness, this loneliness, this existential despair or angst, looking into the abyss.
SPEAKER_01: And he says the only way to deal with this is that you gotta confront it.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta kind of stare it in the face and see what's down there.
SPEAKER_01: It's like life is an invitation, an ongoing invitation for you and I to stare down into this abyss.
SPEAKER_01: As I mentioned, the great Swaran Kierkegaard is a philosopher, he's an existential philosopher.
SPEAKER_01: He said that this is the only way to respond.
SPEAKER_01: That despair, like this, is a pathway to God.
SPEAKER_01: He rejected sort of this uh this uh naive failure or this naive optimism that many of us want to adopt and want to sort of live our lives by.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not really how life is.
SPEAKER_01: Life is really this abyss, and you have to go down there and you have to confront it.
SPEAKER_01: It's part of life.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus from the cross cries out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Why have you left me?
SPEAKER_01: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: Now, many of you know Jesus is actually quoting Psalm 22.
SPEAKER_01: So back in the Psalms, David writes this He says, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Why are you so far from helping me?
SPEAKER_01: From the words of my groaning?
SPEAKER_01: Oh my God, I cry by day, but you don't answer me, and by night, but I find no rest.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: Now, there are many scholars who believe that when when Jesus quotes this psalm, he's quoting the whole thing.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Psalm 22 ends, not on this note of despair, Psalm 22 ends with a note of triumph of him declaring his faith in God all the same.
SPEAKER_01: David ends this psalm by declaring his faith and trust in God.
SPEAKER_01: And some scholars believe that when Jesus quotes this, he's actually quoting the whole thing, thereby giving like this little bit of an Easter egg, and actually this declare of despair that Jesus cries, it's really a cry of faith in God.
SPEAKER_01: But I no longer think that's how it is.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I believe that any longer.
SPEAKER_01: Because if it was that, why wouldn't he have just said that?
SPEAKER_01: Why wouldn't Jesus have just said, hey, I believe in you, I still have faith in you, guys.
SPEAKER_01: I you're gonna get me through, God, it's gonna be okay.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't cry that.
SPEAKER_01: He cries, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Why have you left me?
SPEAKER_01: Why have you abandoned me?
SPEAKER_01: I think the cry that Jesus yells is real.
SPEAKER_01: This sense of being abandoned by the Father, this lost, empty, lonely, despair, this cry is real.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus isn't being cute.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he's being sentimental.
SPEAKER_01: And though I love the poem footprints, God doesn't lean down and say, It was then that I carried you, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus utterly feels lost, lonely, and abandoned.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God.
SPEAKER_01: Why have you left me?
SPEAKER_01: It's as though Jesus is standing over this abyss, crying out.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, a quick side note.
SPEAKER_01: This is an extremely complex and profound theological question in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't have time to give like a theological treatise on it.
SPEAKER_01: I wish I did.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'd be here for four or more hours if I tried, though.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, it's very complex.
SPEAKER_01: And if you want to have coffee and chat about the theology of it, I'd love to do that because there's a ton of things we could say about it.
SPEAKER_01: Um, one of which read there's a guy named Jürgen Moltmann, he's a German theologian, wrote a book called The Crucified God.
SPEAKER_01: If this is sort of like scratching your itch, then get that book and read.
SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible book.
SPEAKER_01: It's long, but it's really, really good.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a ton of theological implications and what does it mean, and where did God and the Trinity?
SPEAKER_01: But for now, I just want to offer a pastoral response.
SPEAKER_01: I will say too, though, that I don't believe that this is God punishing Jesus, that God is so angry at Jesus that he has to turn his back on him because he can't, I don't think that's what's happening at all either.
SPEAKER_01: To me, the cross, if nothing else, is, and it's a bizarre mystery, but it's it's about love.
SPEAKER_01: The love of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's ultimately about love.
SPEAKER_01: He came to save the world, and this is how he does it.
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's it's a profound mystery.
SPEAKER_01: So I think sometimes our only response is one of awe and reverence and sort of mystery and holiness.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what to say a whole lot about this, but I've got 25 minutes to say a couple things.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to offer a pastoral response, if you'll let me.
SPEAKER_01: Doing so with awe and reverence for this moment when Jesus cries out to the Father, Why have you left me?
SPEAKER_01: See, Jesus dies in agonizing death.
SPEAKER_01: It was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: Mark tells us he was greatly distressed and troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew's gospel says he was sorrowful even unto death.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the book of Hebrews says that uh says this well.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he dies with loud cries and tears.
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, once more in Matthew's gospel, he dies with a loud, incoherent cry.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes that somehow sin and evil and violence and all the darkness of the world converges onto Jesus in this moment.
SPEAKER_01: And he's utterly overwhelmed with this sense of God forsakenness.
SPEAKER_01: Many scholars call this the darkest moment in human history, and he expresses this extremely profound, horrific cry on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Which makes me wonder.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever cried out like this before?
SPEAKER_00: God, where are you?
SPEAKER_00: Why have you left me?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you care about me, God?
SPEAKER_00: Do something, God, help me! Where the hell are you?
SPEAKER_00: What's going on?
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus has cried that same cry.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: Do something.
SPEAKER_00: Help me! Don't you see me?
SPEAKER_00: I'm in agony, I'm in despair.
SPEAKER_00: Help me.
SPEAKER_01: And he cries out from the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus does, my god, my God.
SPEAKER_01: Why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you felt the weight of the world on your shoulders.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've had a broken relationship that just did not go how you'd planned, and you're left in tatters.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you have a wayward child that just confuses so much of you.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you had an unloving parent that just never could be what you wanted them to be.
SPEAKER_01: Could never give you what you needed.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've suffered abuse, it's unjust abuse.
SPEAKER_01: And you've cried this out before.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been a victim of violence.
SPEAKER_01: Or some other injustice in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've lost a loved one too soon.
SPEAKER_01: Too soon.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you've cried out, my god, my god.
SPEAKER_02: Why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_02: Where are you?
SPEAKER_01: The great Elie Wazell was a young Jewish boy during the World War uh Second World War.
SPEAKER_01: And he was, yeah, a little boy, and he was in the Auschwitz concentration camp as a little boy, and he had a strong Jewish faith going in, but actually in the camps he sort of loses his faith.
SPEAKER_01: He wrote a book called Night.
SPEAKER_01: If you ever have a chance, you can read the book Night.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's deeply saddening.
SPEAKER_01: But and he tells about his experience in Auschwitz.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the days there are these three people that get caught stealing bread from the soldiers, and they bring them out and they hang them from the gallows in front of everybody to watch.
SPEAKER_01: And to make everyone watch.
SPEAKER_01: And when they're watching, somebody cries out, My God, where is God?
SPEAKER_01: Where is God?
SPEAKER_01: Sort of echoing the cry of Jesus on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: Where is God in this moment?
SPEAKER_01: And the crowd goes silent again as they all watch.
SPEAKER_01: And the voice cries out again, Where is God?
SPEAKER_01: It's a fair question.
SPEAKER_01: Ellie, young boy, in that moment says he l he loses his faith.
SPEAKER_01: He said it was the death of God in the soul of a child.
SPEAKER_01: Because he responds in his own head, where is God?
SPEAKER_01: There he is, he's on the gallows.
SPEAKER_01: He's dead.
SPEAKER_01: He's not coming to save us.
SPEAKER_01: This has all been a sham.
SPEAKER_01: And he experiences, in a real way, the death of God right before his eyes.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way God could allow it.
SPEAKER_01: God's not here.
SPEAKER_01: And as Ellie stares into the abyss, he looks down in there and there's nothing down there.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, God is hanging there in the gallows.
SPEAKER_01: He's dead to me.
SPEAKER_01: Years later, Jürgen Moltmann, this great theologian, this German theologian, he takes this story and he requotes it in his book, The Crucified God.
SPEAKER_01: But he sort of flips it.
SPEAKER_01: And I've read both, and I think that I think that that uh Jürgen Moltmann, with all due respect to Ellie Vizel, Jurgen gets it right.
SPEAKER_01: And he comes to a different conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: When he sees that God in the gallows, he's like, no, God is there.
SPEAKER_01: That doesn't mean that God is dead.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, when Jurgen Moltmann hears the cry, where is God?
SPEAKER_01: Jürgen Moltan says, Yeah, God is there.
SPEAKER_01: God is there, hanging from the gallows.
SPEAKER_01: God is present right here, right now in the suffering.
SPEAKER_01: God is with these people being hung from the gallows.
SPEAKER_01: And Moltman sort of points to the fact that, like, no, God is there.
SPEAKER_01: God is there.
SPEAKER_01: God is with us in the deepest, darkest moments of our lives, even the God forsaken moments.
SPEAKER_01: God is there.
SPEAKER_01: He's the God hanging on the gallows.
SPEAKER_01: That's what God is.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's where He is.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's exactly where God is.
SPEAKER_01: God is suffering with the suffering.
SPEAKER_01: When you cry, God cries.
SPEAKER_01: When you weep from the deepest parts of your soul, God weeps from the deepest parts of his soul.
SPEAKER_01: When you ache, God aches.
SPEAKER_01: When you feel lonely, lost, despair, brokenness, and as you stare into this abyss, yeah, God is there.
SPEAKER_01: God is present in the absence somehow.
SPEAKER_01: Which then reminds me of the Psalm 23, where David at the end of it says, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, the darkest valley where the shadow of death looms over, and I'm terrified.
SPEAKER_01: I can't see anything, even there.
SPEAKER_01: You're with me, and you'll guide me.
SPEAKER_01: I will fear no evil.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, there he is.
SPEAKER_01: God is present there.
SPEAKER_01: He's exactly there.
SPEAKER_01: To the cross is God's participation with human suffering.
SPEAKER_01: God is not some distant, aloof, disinterested, God doesn't care.
SPEAKER_01: No, God is deeply involved to the point of enjo of joining the suffering of the human world on the cross.
SPEAKER_01: In this Godforsaken moment, God is present in the suffering.
SPEAKER_01: God Himself experiences God forsakenness.
SPEAKER_01: He experiences death from within.
SPEAKER_01: This moment of sheer abandonment and lostness.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is divine solidarity with human beings.
SPEAKER_01: God knows.
SPEAKER_01: God is present in the suffering.
SPEAKER_01: See, God isn't distant.
SPEAKER_01: He's the crucified God.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one who knows.
SPEAKER_01: He's present in the suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Which means this.
SPEAKER_01: A couple things.
SPEAKER_01: It means this.
SPEAKER_01: That God's presence is found in the place of absolute abandonment.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: When you look into the abyss, you find God.
SPEAKER_01: And this is Kierkegaard's only response to the despair and anxiety in human life is that this nonsensical leap of faith into God.
SPEAKER_01: It's the only answer to the despair in the world.
SPEAKER_01: He might say the world really is as bad as we think it is.
SPEAKER_01: And the only way to deal this is to jump into the arms of God.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is there.
SPEAKER_01: He's present in the places of absolute abandonment.
SPEAKER_01: Which also means this that the cross means that God chooses solidarity with the brokenhearted.
SPEAKER_01: God is always on the side of the brokenhearted, the weak, the poor, the oppressed.
SPEAKER_01: He's close to them.
SPEAKER_01: He's with them.
SPEAKER_01: Which means that there's this then, too, that there is no suffering in the whole human existence.
SPEAKER_01: Even the God forsakenness that victims feel is held within God's own heart and story.
SPEAKER_01: There's no suffering that God doesn't know or isn't intimately familiar with.
SPEAKER_01: He knows.
SPEAKER_01: God is there, he's present.
SPEAKER_01: You know suffering.
SPEAKER_01: And I know this is not the most uplifting sermon I've ever given before in my life.
SPEAKER_01: But somehow it brings me comfort.
SPEAKER_01: Like, okay, this things that I'm going through, this edge of the abyss, like the God has been there as well.
SPEAKER_01: He knows what it's like.
SPEAKER_01: He knows the depth of our suffering.
SPEAKER_01: And he's not like the Greeks used to think that God was this immutable, impassable God who didn't care, couldn't have emotions, was never moved.
SPEAKER_01: No, no, God is extremely moved.
SPEAKER_01: He's moved to tears sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: He's moved to anguish.
SPEAKER_01: God is extremely involved and invested in our lives and feels the things that we feel.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is the crucified God.
SPEAKER_01: Which of course raises the question, though, why?
SPEAKER_01: Why does God allow this?
SPEAKER_01: Why would God allow all this stuff?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know the answer to that.
SPEAKER_01: But I love the response from John Lennox, and I'll close with this.
SPEAKER_01: John Lennox has asked the same question.
SPEAKER_01: This is the question that humans have wrestled with for centuries, if not thousands of years.
SPEAKER_01: Why does God allow suffering?
SPEAKER_01: And there's no good answer for this, but here's the thing.
SPEAKER_01: All of us have to wrestle with this.
SPEAKER_01: Christians, atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, agnostics, nihilists, existentialists, we all have to answer this question of why is there evil and suffering in a world like this?
SPEAKER_01: And so John Lennox says, well, I want to flip the question around and say it like this, maybe.
SPEAKER_01: And say it like, and this is what he says he says, look, let's just take it, let's take it as a point that we do live in a world full of suffering, granted.
SPEAKER_01: Now he says, though, is there any evidence of a God who cares about it?
SPEAKER_01: Who knows the suffering of the world and wants to do something about it?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01: That's the Christian story.
SPEAKER_01: There is a God who cares.
SPEAKER_01: And a God who knows.
SPEAKER_01: Central, may you hear the cry of Jesus, the Son, on the cross to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: My God, my God.
SPEAKER_01: Why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: Why have you loved me?
SPEAKER_01: Why have you abandoned me?
SPEAKER_01: And may you feel permission this morning to cry that same cry.
SPEAKER_01: Where are you, God?
SPEAKER_01: And may your cry somehow mix and mingle with Jesus' cry.
SPEAKER_01: And the cry of David and the cry of Job.
SPEAKER_01: And the cry of Jonah from the belly of the whale in the darkness, and the cry of Joseph in the bottom of the pit in the well.
SPEAKER_01: And the thousands of millions of saints who've gone before us who've also cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
SPEAKER_01: And friends, as we explore the cross and look to the cross, may you indeed see on the cross the presence of God in the suffering.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.