Life some days is so tough we struggle desperately to hold things together. We may keep that watery smile in public that communicates a please don’t ask me how I am doing or I willburst into tears. It is actually part of being genuinely human to admit that some things that happen in life are too much for us to handle; that our emotions just overflow at the enormity of what we are facing, or others around us are facing. For those of us used to being in control of our emotions and our daily circumstances and our work commitments such times make us feel very vulnerable and inadequate.
Over these last few weeks many of us will have privately shed tears over our own circumstances or those of others around us. At a time like this of serious social restrictions it is particularly hard to support others going through hard times or to receive support ourselves in these circumstances when we are not free to visit and spend time with other people.
Although there are snatched moments of conversations on the street or in shops when we are allowed outside our homes to buy food it is not the same as our normal social interactions. In addition, the fear of not knowing how long these abnormal times will continue will be something that will cause a number of people to struggle with their emotional wellbeing.
On the cross 2,000 years ago Jesus uttered a series of short statements which the Gospel writers have recorded. It is clear that Psalm 22 is in His mind at that time and the saying highlighted today is a direct quotation from it. It is the most solemn of all and is cited in Matthew 27:45-46.
It states: From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?’).
The felt experience of Jesus that day was of abandonment. For the first time in His life He felt completely alone as He bore our sin on the cross. We can never understand the depths of what He went through that day. We must not tone down the anguish suffered as it was absolutely real. Equally, we must also affirm that there was never a time in His earthly life when Jesus was loved more by His heavenly Father. He had lived a perfect life of obedience to the will of God on earth modelling for us an example to follow.
The uncomfortable fact this teaches us is that we too can live a God-honouring life in a sin-damaged world and face all kinds of heartaches and fears, ill health and premature deaths as part of living in this world. We would rather focus on the good things of life, and rightly so, but in the present time they are overshadowed by the difficulties caused by this Covid-19 virus crisis.
The message God wants us to hear in the midst of our tears and our fears for the future is one that became in time an immense comfort to the apostle Paul as he came through a personal time of crisis. We need not detain ourselves looking at the details of his struggles to appreciate his desire for their removal and his struggle to accept God’s answer to him.
In II Corinthians 12:8-10 Paul wrote: Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. 9 But He said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
God’s promise to Paul and to us is that in the midst of our heartaches and tears, our struggles and our fears, that He will sustain and strengthen us to keep going for as long as it takes.
Our song for reflection today is one I have greatly appreciated in recent years and probably some of you have also valued it too. ‘Blessed be Your name’
Brian Talbot