The Special of the Day… From the Orange Moon Cafe…
“Forsaken... Never Forsaken”
The pain of separation became a reality for me very early in life. My father died when I was two, and thus old enough for him to have become greatly cherished and beloved in my heart. I recall little about him now, but I have lived my life in full awareness that a void has existed in my heart since the day my father left.
In elementary school, I further experienced the difficulty of losing people who meant something to me. When the fall semester began each year, questions would arise. “Where is Johnnie? What happened to Susan?” Over the summer, families moved away, resulting in the loss of friends, many of whom I never saw again. As time passed, life led to even more keenly felt separations, sometimes by more deaths of loved ones. Of all the challenges this present fallen world brings to our hearts, none more pain and even break our hearts than having to say goodbye to those we long to keep near. “And they all wept sore, and fell on Paul's neck, and kissed him, sorrowing most of all for the words which he spake, that they should see his face no more” (Acts 20:37-38).
While the sorrow of separation keenly impacts us all, one such breach of relationship bears the most significance despite the fact it occurred not in the hearts of ourselves, but in the heart of Another:
“My God, My God why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27:46).
Against the backdrop of a “from everlasting” fellowship of love that “passeth knowledge,” a breach somehow occurred on the cross of Calvary between God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, and God the Son (Psalm 90:2; Ephesians 3:19). The Lord Jesus bore our sins, and in a mystery far more beyond our comprehension, was “made to be sin for us” (I Peter 2:24; II Corinthians 5:21). On the cross, the Father smote His Son for our sake with the fury of His wrath against sin, the most horrific aspect of which doubtless involved the forsakenness whereby the Lord Jesus died utterly alone. Indeed, no one has ever known loneliness as did our Savior when the Father and the Holy Spirit left Him to die far more of a broken heart than a broken body. “Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted” (Isaiah 53:4).
The pain of separation? One knows such agony far more than all others, the very One who can help us when we must say our farewells. Indeed, to the degree the Lord Jesus was forsaken on the cross, God promises that such loss will never happen to those who trust Him: “I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). We will feel the sorrows of separation in this lifetime. Never, however, will we know complete and utter abandonment as did the Lord Jesus. He can help us when we feel alone, enabling us to remember that the only One we cannot lose will never leave nor forsake us. This because our Lord most keenly knows what it means to be left and forsaken, the sacrifice whereby He freely grants and secures the presence of God in our hearts forevermore…
“I am with you always.”
(Matthew 28:20)
Weekly Memory Verse
"Gracious is the Lord, and righteous. Yea, our God is merciful."
(Psalm 116:5).
7847
No comments:
Post a Comment