Forsaken

Samuel Wells' book A Cross in the Heart of God: Reflections on the Death of Jesus offers some fascinating and challenging insights on Jesus' being abandoned, which, I think, help us in engaging with questions of despair and desolation as we can know that Jesus has been there.

Wells writes:  "The gospel isn’t about some contest of pain in which Jesus came out the winner. The gospel is not that Jesus physically suffered. It’s that he was forsaken.’"

"Forsaken. Jesus’ last words, in Mark’s gospel, are, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ At first sight, this is simply the last in a chain of abandonments. The disciples flee, Peter denies, Judas betrays, now the Father forsakes. It’s a litany of desertion. And there’s something in this litany. Remember, if the crucial word in the gospel is with, then the events leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion are a heartless and wholesale dismantling of that with. Jesus is left without all those he worked so hard to be with – the disciples, the authorities, the poor – and all of them have not just disappeared, but actively deserted or betrayed him. Jesus is still with us, but we, at this most precious moment of all, are not with him."

The fact is that Jesus re-defines so much. Wells also comments: "in the wonder of the incarnation and in the horror of the cross: God hasn’t stopped being a king; God’s redefined what it means to be a king. If we’re to look for true kingship, it’s to be found among those who do as Christ has done; among those who set aside the power, acclaim and influence to discover love in true encounter. In Christ, in the crucified Lord, God is presenting us with a transformed picture of what it means to be a king."

Our problem is trying to stick to the old models,