INTRO
A little over a week ago I made a pilgrimage over to Wally Mart – I’m sure to get something for dinner. Anyway, while getting out of the car, I noticed that the car in front of me had in it a small child – a baby, sitting in his or her car seat, sleeping away. All the while the baby’s mother (or father) was nowhere in sight – most probably in the store.
All I could do at the time was cry in my spirit and shake my head. I wondered why a loving parent would turn their back – seemingly abandoning that tiny little baby – even if only for a matter of minutes. I have to admit, I was neglectful.
As a loving parent I should have called 911, flagged down an officer, or something. Still, I must admit; I sinned — because I did not do these things my heart my was crying for me to do. I felt like I spiritually abandoned that child, driving off with my own in our van for home, only lamenting over my own sin.
I have to be honest; I cannot imagine why any parent would abandon their child – even if for only a few minutes. And yet, I hear stories all the time of parents that walk away from the children – abandoning or forsaking them to the evils of this world.
I cannot imagine the pain that a child has to endure when his or her parent turns their back and abandons him or her. Our children use to cry so much when my wife or I would leave for work. However, they weren’t being abandoned. In them, we saw the simple of fear of not wanting to get left behind, of mom or dad leaving the house—if only to go to work. In their own way they had a fear of abandonment.
But , unless we as individuals have ever been truly abandoned by a parent, I don’t know if we can truly know the true pain of being forsaken, I know now if we can ever really know what it means to have a parent simply walk out of your life.
Imagine Jesus, if only for a moment, of what it must have been like to have had His Father – a Father he had spent an eternity with before the creation of the Universe, for only a brief moment turn his back on Him. From before the beginning of creation, from before there was a before, from before heaven, the angels – from before there was anything, Jesus and the Father were one… The Father, the Son, and the Spirit were one – wholly intimate, wholly one, never being separated from one another.
And then Jesus comes to earth – He willing comes to us – but still intimate and with His father– for God the Father is still truly with him in ways quite frankly that we cannot even comprehend. And even in the thick of His passion, Jesus is still in the Father, and the Father in Him – all through the pain, the torment, the mocking. There still is no separation….. UNTIL. READ Matthew 27:46: Ali – Ali, lema sabaxthani
JESUS ABANDONED BY THE FATHER
I can just hear Jesus today, screaming: “Dad – Lord, Father…. Why have you abandoned me? I can’t handle this Father; I have never been away from you? Why are you turning your back from me now? Spirit of God, why have you left me? I have never been separate from you” God, please don’t leave me like this; I… I… I …. Father!”
But why this torment, why did God the Father have to abandon His son? Why did he have to leave him, if only for a moment, like that woman left her infant – helpless to the wolves of the world? The answer is simple to utter, but not simple to understand. Truly I don’t know if we can really comprehend the truth of the fact that the Father had to abandon His Son. But we know, at least intellectually, that the Father could not bear to look upon the Sin – the sins of the entire world – that His son took upon himself – if only for a moment in time.
The Father had to abandon the Son, so that through Jesus’ death and resurrection we – the ones who deserve to be abandoned because we are dead to the world, will never be forsaken or abandoned, because we are made alive in Christ.
GOD ABANDONED BY HUMANITY
When we read the Gospel we can hear Jesus pain, for you and I can imagine – if only to a minutia degree – what it must be like to be abandoned by a parent. And yet again, I don’t believe we can understand the anguish God the Father must feel when His children abandon him – when we forsake him?
Listen to Genesis 3:9 – God, in looking for Adam and Eve in the garden says, “Where are you?” We have to believe that God knows all things, and can see all things… I don’t think this is questioning from God that He really doesn’t know where they are, but a rhetorical question of sadness – a question with a feeling of abandonment. Saying, Children – where did you go? Kids, why have you left me? I want to be with you, why have you left me? What’s going on here – what’s going on that you don’t want to be with me anymore?”
WE ABANDON ONE ANOTHER
This makes me think of all the kids that run away… and why do they do that? I think too often it’s because they don’t feel loved – the feel emotionally and spiritually abandoned by their parents – so to cover the pain, to run away from the pain, they reciprocate and abandon their relationship with their parents.
In short, this is what Adam and Eve did – they ran away from God. They abandoned him. And because they did that, for a short time, God needed to reciprocate, to reverse what had been done, so that the relationship would be righted, so that the relationship would be corrected… but He didn’t abandon us, he abandoned his own son so that we would never feel forsaken by the Father.
And yet, many of us still run… many of us continue to run away from God & each other – We abandon because we feel abandoned…. We forsake, because we feel forsaken. And why do we think this – why do we think that God abandoned us? I think that’s an easy one… there’s lots of hurt and pain in the world, there’s lots of suffering, disease, war, famine, disaster, and lots and lots of hatred for one another. For we even abandon one another in the church.
The author of Hebrews wrote, chapter 10, verse 25: “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” For in our pain within our own congregations, sometimes people want to run away from relationship instead of running into the pain… sometimes running away seems easier.
CLOSE
So, what is one to do? The answer is simple…. We encourage one another, because we will never be abandoned by God. I would like to close with these words from Saint Paul this evening. Paul wrote to the church in Corinth: We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
Therefore, my friends, in the words of the author of Hebrews, continue being with one another and continue encouraging one another… Let us no longer abandon one another, because God will not abandon us!
