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God is Beyond Us and Over Us
Where are you, God? Where are you?
2 How long, Lord? Will you utterly forget me?
How long will you hide your face from me?
3 How long must I carry sorrow in my soul,
grief in my heart day after day?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?
4 Look upon me, answer me, Lord, my God!
Give light to my eyes lest I sleep in death,
6 But I trust in your mercy.
Grant my heart joy in your salvation,
I will sing to the Lord,
for he has dealt bountifully with me!
Psalm 13.2-4, 6 (NABRE)
Have you ever felt that God had forgotten about you, that you had been abandoned by God at a moment in which you were close to death itself? If you have not experienced this, you may. Yet, not everyone experiences the despair a sickness can impact on our soul and life. The circumstances of David in this psalm are not told us, but we do and can feel the utter dejection he feels. Fortunately, David closes with his confidence in God and his praise of God. He may feel abandoned, but deep within, David secures his outlook by his confidence in who God is, and what we know about God. Whether rescued or not, David will sing to the Lord "for he has dealt bountifully with me."
Yet, there are those moments in which we feel abandoned, moments in which we may question our very prayers and wonder whether God has turned his back on us. Others pray to God and are heard, and recover from their sickness, but for us, the sickness only becomes worse as day turns into tomorrow and tomorrow into yesterday. We are helpless. And yet, such feelings are very human and a part of who we are.
Consider for a moment how we are made— we are body, soul, and spirit. There is an emotional part to us as well as an intellectual part; we have a body and a mind. Indeed, what affects one area, affects all areas. This is especially true when we become chronically ill. Our thinking becomes distorted; our emotions register deep and dark thoughts. Our body is in constant pain and our very spirituality we question. Is God angry with us? Is there no hope but death? What have we done or left undone that would cause God to leave us?
We sometimes think of the cry on the cross, "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me?" And we tend to interpret the utterance as the moment in which all the sins were placed on the shoulders of the Christ, and God turned away. Theologians say this, but honestly, the text does not explain the cry. It is not that the theology here is wrong (theology may be wrong here), but there may be something else that we are overlooking. The cry of the Christ is very similar, indeed, almost identical to the cry of David in Psalm 13. Maybe we should understand the utterance as one of dejection and despair, that moment in which we are the lowest we can be in life, that moment in which life is passing into a dark abyss of no return. The emotions of the Christ cannot go any lower; he does feel abandoned by God. Grief, deep grief is in his utterance. We are told that "we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4.15). The Lord came and lived among us and experienced even our darkest emotions. His cry on the cross is the cry of deep agony.
Jules Verne talks about the abyss in his book, Journey to the Centre of the Earth:
"I leaned over a rock which stood on its edge, and looked down. My hair stood on end, my teeth chattered, my limbs trembled. I seemed utterly to lose my centre of gravity, while my head was in a sort of whirl . . . There is nothing more powerful than this attraction towards an abyss."
The abyss is frightening and yet pulls us into its darkness like some irresistible whirlpool, pulling us down further and further. David cannot pull himself away without the help of God, and yet God is nowhere to be found. David is lost in a vortex of grief and sorrow, luring him closer to the abyss of death. Only his remembrance of the mercy of God grants him the strength to pull back. In the case of the Christ, there is no pulling back; he cannot come down from the cross, but in his dying breath, he can commend his spirit to God; "It is finished." Our hair may stand on end, our teeth may chatter, and our limbs tremble in despair, but there is an end to the abyss and the fear that the abyss brings. We may not understand, but we know in whom we have believed.
Consider Job. His incredible patience is noted by James; Job begins well, "The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job consistently defends the accusations made by his friends. And yet, at the end, Job demands that God answer him. Job wants to place God in the dock, place God on the witness stand to be cross-examined. In my opinion, this borders on sacrilege. How can man ever demand anything of God? Maybe Job is only expressing a wish but his stance here is not the same he expresses at the opening of his sufferings. God answers, not by rebuking Job, but rather by asking, "Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Job is silenced.
Consider also John the Baptist. When imprisoned and awaiting execution, he sends disciples to the Christ, wanting to know whether the Christ was indeed the Christ, or should they look for another. This seems very strange. John the Baptist, of course, is not sick, but he is facing the end of his life and he has doubts. Christ does not act shocked as he replies to those sent by John.
If literary figures the stature of a Job or a John can falter, we can, too. That does not mean we are not men of faith; we are. But when our faith is tried, that trial can be very severe and almost overwhelming. Abraham both believed God and doubted God; as a result, he had a child with Hagar, only later with Sarah. If Abraham had only waited for God to act. . . The fact is that we are made of dust and God is very much aware of our frailties. The fact is that a faith that is not tried is not a real faith.
If I may cite the words of Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him:" (Job 13.15). We are not his counsellors, and the thoughts and ways of God are not our thoughts and our ways.
God is beyond us and over us.
