Jesus Final Answer: Good Grief

My God!

My God !

WHY?

Have You Forsaken Me?

Grief: It is a challenging thing; additionally it can be a gut wrenching thing. Grief comes to each one of us.  It's doubtful there is anyone who will never experience it, and that included the Son of The Living God, even Jesus.   After hanging and suffering, and listening  to those who witnessed His demise,  and speaking to His Mother Mary and John, His loss was becoming intense and extraordinarily real.  It was becoming very authentic indeed.

From the moment of His conception, His relationship with His Father, was just perfect.  When God the Father spoke to God the Son, God the Son listened prayerfully and carefully. He spoke the words given Him by the Father.  It did not matter if His words were hated, ignored or well received with glee, as He bled and died there and set people free. He only wanted to walk with His DAD in Heaven. Never in the history of humankind had there ever been an intimacy like that of The Father, and The Son and The Holy Spirit. There had never been anything like the Trinity shared up to the very moments of the suffering, whipping, bleeding and dying. But something had happened that Yeshua had never experienced before.

Jesus could no longer sense the wooing of the Holy Spirit nor The Spirit's  comfort. He could not relate with the Father nor the Father with Him.  All of the sudden, He began to experience all the horrific guilt, pain, sorrow,  shame, and feelings of being totally filthy and sinful,  as He carried  all the sin human beings that had lived or ever would live,  had committed or would commit.  What was happening to Him? Where was God?  OH NO! The horror of all horrors was upon Him, and He felt totally and completely forsaken! The SIN that was enveloping Him was distancing Him from God.  NO! His sinfulness completely separated Him from the ONE He loved so very much.  HE WAS FORSAKEN!

So, in what we today call the first stage of grief, Shock,  Jesus was left so utterly shamed, numb and overwhelmed by the crushing burden. So, He cried out the grief word that all who have grieved know. He cried out the word that I have heard many Preachers incorrectly say we should not say, but Jesus said it loud and clear for all to hear! He cried out the Word that God gives all of us the right to cry out when we experience loss.  HE ASKED GOD ... W H Y? My God!  My God!  WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?

During these Holy Days, many who read this blog are somewhere in the Journey of Grief.  And some of you really wish you could ask God, "Why?"  Yet, you are terrified of doing that.  All your life you have been told that you should NEVER asked God "Why?"  So, you suffer silently, and you cannot move on in your grief journey because you cannot get past your shock, and you cannot do so because you cannot speak the words of grief that need to be spoken.

I urge you to consider Jesus, the one who never sinned, and I urge you to consider what He did when His capability to make sense of things  was overwhelmed by  His inability to understand. Consider, Jesus who did what you and I do.  He did something that was a model for us to follow.  He gave us the model of "Good Grief." He gave us, and He gives you permission to grieve with Hope. Cry out to your Heavenly Father, through Jesus the Son, by the power of The Holy Spirit! Do what Peter commanded, "Cast ALL your cares on HIM for He cared for you." (1 Peter 5:7) As my wife says, "God has big shoulders:" Know that you have a listener in Heaven, called Love, waiting to listen to you from the Heavenly dimensions: HE is the Wonderful Counselor, the Great High Priest and Eternal Father who understands all your feelings and your infirmities because He was tempted just like you are.  He is the one who challenges you to come boldly to Him and talk with Him about anything anytime.  He is the ONE who will give you mercy and grace to help you in your hour of grief. (Hebrews 4:15-16)

God will hear you!  God will love you! And at just the right time God will help you through to the other side. Why not grieve? Why not unload your burdens on God? Why not process your grief?  Why not ask God "Why?"  Why not experience "Good Grief."

SoJourner