Do You Feel Alone?

Read through the Gospels in a Year: Matthew 27:45-56
Read the New Testament in a Year: Romans 14
Supremely, through the cross and resurrection of Jesus, God works for your good. Jesus experienced appalling suffering and real separation from God in order that you could enjoy the presence of God.

Jesus was abandoned by the religious leaders, by his own family, by the crowds, by his disciples and finally, ‘Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”’ (v.46). Jesus’ words of agony express a real sense of alienation from God. He is quoting from Psalm 22:1, which is a cry of suffering, lament and alienation from God. In the book of Job, we saw how Scripture engages with the difficulties and complexities of human suffering. At the cross though we see God’s ultimate answer to our suffering – he chooses to enter into it and take it upon himself.

John Stott reflects on suffering and the cross: ‘I could never myself believe in God if it were not for the cross… in the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?’

Yet Jesus’ embrace of our suffering on the cross goes beyond mere solidarity. His words reflect how he came ‘to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20:28). He died so that you could go free. Jesus was abandoned so that you and I might be accepted by God. We see the reality of this acceptance by what happens at the moment of Jesus’ death: ‘the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom’ (27:51). The symbolism of this is explained in the book of Hebrews. The curtain separated the people from the ‘Most Holy Place’ – that is the presence of God (Hebrews 9:3). Now, through Jesus, you can experience God’s presence and an intimate friendship with him. Even the very detail that the curtain was torn from the top to the bottom reminds us that it was the work of God, and not of humans, that enabled your acceptance into God’s presence. You can know God’s acceptance and presence because of Jesus’ abandonment and suffering. God was working for your good.