From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.” Matthew 27:45-47
He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Isaiah 53:3
Few magazines do a better job of reporting on sociological trends than USA Today. Last month they reported that the average American life expectancy jumped considerably during the 20th Century. Most of us know of the increase. I wonder how many really know the margin of that increase. Would you believe 30 years?
As people committed to the cause of Christ, this begs a response. What are you going to do with those extra 30 years? Never before has the Christian community had more of an opportunity to impact its world for the cause of Christ.
Rejection
Few things in life hurt more than rejection. Nobody likes to be turned down, told the job went to someone else, or open the mail to discover your article or joke didn’t make the grade for Reader’s Digest. You know the feeling – disappointment, discouragement.
What does rejection sound like? Well, just listen. Turn off the TV and turn down the CD and listen again. The cries of rejection that produce loneliness are everywhere. Faint cries of rejection and loneliness are all around us. Sitting at a puzzle in the senior retirement community is the cry of silence. They stand out in the libraries and cafeterias of American high schools; it’s a student sitting alone whose parents just transferred to the local Navy base. They’re struggling to emerge as one of the “haves” instead of “have-nots.”
Rejection is the painful realization that our lives are bereft of that much needed contact from others. It’s a universal experience that none of us, from the inside trader on Wall Street to the college student at the University of Washington, escapes. Rejection lingers in the heart of the terrorist from Al Qaeda and the Hollywood film star who is past his/her prime and reduced to bit parts as “the second tall person.”
There they are - the family of four who sleeps in a gated community in the suburbs in 3300 sq/ft of the latest architectural beauty. The class valedictorian who never quite made the grade in life. The aging Miss Washington. Alone. Lonely. Feeling rejected. Daily.
I am here today to encourage the worn and wounded hearts of those whose phone never rings on Friday night. For those whose pastor doesn’t know their name. I am here today to encourage the ones who look in the mirror every morning and see only themselves.
Two types of people ride the subways, stand at the copier, or sit in rush hour traffic listening to talk radio while fighting back the tears and terror of rejection. First are the superstars. Quick to lead and first to speak, you have the funniest joke and the latest hairstyle. The crowd turns and looks and listens when you’re around. Your eye is purposeful. Your calendar is full. Your voice resonates with confidence. But when you’re alone, you would trade it all for authenticity, friendship, and a pace that is real.
Second are the strugglers. Everyone else always gets the breaks. Your name is not Kennedy, it is just Smith or Jones, leaving you feeling like you come from the wrong side of the tracks. You struggle to make eye contact. Your clothes don’t announce a winner, and your looks are so plain that you are hardly even noticed. As Max Lucado says, “Ziggy is your hero and Charlie Brown is your mentor.” (1)
One of the greatest challenges of the modern day Christian is staying balanced. The only way we can do this is to come back to God’s Word to establish our bearings. There is no better-balanced life than that of Jesus Christ; He developed as a whole person.
“And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and favor with God and men.” (Luke 2:52)
You may be strong in the social arena, enjoying relationships that are unguarded, mature, and open. Perhaps your spiritual life is vibrant and fresh with new insights being gleaned daily and applied to your faith. But when it comes to the emotional you could conceivably be deprived. It is so easy to be emotionally underdeveloped as a Christian. This is the most consistently avoided area in Christian lives.
Rejection is a universal experience that none of us escapes. The words of Jesus in verse 46 of Matthew 27 introduce us to a side of the human drama that will benefit us all: How do I cope with rejection and loneliness?
We are confronted with the stress and anxiety associated with rejection on a daily basis - a request rejected by the boss, an announcement of separation from spouse, a child held back in school.
Rejection comes in many forms from mild rejection when the waitress says “no” to an exchange on the menu, to the extreme of hearing a spouse say, “I no longer love you, I am leaving you for someone else.”
Is there anyplace to look for answers? Must I lean on a psychic hot line or move to one of the many single condominiums downtown? Does anyone have the answer? Yes, God has the answer
It might sound surprising, but God alone has endured more rejection than anyone else in existence. It wasn’t a prisoner in Dachau, the patient in a cancer ward, or a politician at the loser’s podium conceding the race. It was God, the Messiah of the world, crucified by mankind. His desperate cry of rejection still offers hope for everyone on the outskirts of rejection and loneliness who needs to come into the city limits of His love and relationship.
Learning to Cope With Rejection
God rejected Jesus so our Father would never reject us. (Matthew 27:45 – 46)
Go with me to Golgotha. The sky is dark; you’ll need a flashlight to see the details of the story. Take a deep breath. This portion of the story is rated “R” for “Ransom victims only, and mature audiences.” For three hours from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. the vilest of human wickedness is poured out on the Man hanging on the center cross. Men gamble for His clothes. Strangers hurl insults. “Many were close to the cross but far from the blood,” as Joseph Marshall says.
All of this is occurred under the watchful eye of a Father noting every act of agony. Every effort to breathe, every drop of blood that hits the ground, nothing goes unnoticed from the Father who has experienced eternal unity with His Son.
Then, out of the eastern sky, roll the storm clouds of darkness. A hellish blackness drops out of the atmosphere and settles on all of Palestine.
From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. (Matthew 23:45)
Many struggled to make sense of what was happening. All Eternity knew. The angels turned in horror. The saints of old shuttered. The Father and Holy Spirit watched in silence as three kinds of darkness enshrouded the human existence. Three Apocalyptic horsemen rode into Jerusalem that day. Physical darkness, relational darkness, and finally, spiritual darkness encompassed the earth for three hours.
The sinless Savior turned sin-bearer hung suspended between heaven and earth. Separated. A tear had occurred in the Godhead. The Trinity had been dismantled. Unity was now divided. God the Father and His Son were now estranged. No longer one, the relationship was dissolved. Now, two separate entities. (2)
The only time God has every turned His back, happened at that moment. For three hours the Son, the Savior, the Sin-bearer carried our sin, your sin and mine – anger, sexual deviancy, impatience with your spouse, stealing from work, addictions that rob you of health and a clear conscious.
God made Him who had no sin, to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21 NIV)
It goes beyond what Christ did. This act of God’s love for you and me includes an appeal. Paul spells it out in the verse before.
Become friends with God; He’s already a friend with you. How? you say. In Christ. God put on Him the wrong who never did anything wrong, so we could be put right with God. (2 Corinthians 5:21c MSG)
“My God!” The wail rises from parched lips. The holy heart is broken. The sin-bearer screams as He wanders in eternal wasteland. Then the words screamed by all who walk in the desert of loneliness soar to the silent sky. “Why? Why did you abandon me?”
God turned His back on Jesus, so that He would never have to turn His back on us. We are not abandoned. We are not orphans. We are not alone. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us of this truth:
Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5 NIV)
There it is, the word forsake. It sounds painful. It produces a mid-air collision with a courtroom gavel that says, “Divorced,” and an emergency room doctor that says, “Dead.” The word means, “to let one down, to desert, abandon, leave in a lurch, leave one helpless.” Kenneth Wuest helps us with this word when he includes the idea, “being that of deserting someone in a set of circumstances that are against him.”(3)
For those three hours Jesus Christ suffered alone, taking the penalty that you and I deserved for all eternity. We deserved to be forsaken. We should have been banished. No matter how hard we try to cover up sin’s work or deny its existence, sin will eventually awake from its slumber, shake off its cover, and make its presence known.
A man purchased a white mouse to use as food for his pet snake. He dropped the unsuspecting mouse into the snake’s glass cage, where the snake was sleeping in a bed of sawdust.
The tiny mouse had a serious problem on his hands. At any moment he could be swallowed alive. Obviously, the mouse needed to come up with a brilliant plan. What did the terrified creature do? He quickly set to work covering the snake with sawdust chips until it was completely buried. With that, the mouse apparently thought he had solved his problem.
The solution, however, came from the outside. The man took pity on the silly little mouse and removed him from the cage. (4)
Were it not for the saving grace of Jesus on the cross and the Father accepting the Son’s sacrifice at the end of those three hours, sin would eat us alive. At the end, Jesus said, “It is finished.” The work was done. Man was ransomed from Satan’s clutches.
On that day, Satan released mankind and took the life of Jesus Christ into the slave markets of eternity. Satan was quick to accept the prize, which he perceived as more valuable than your soul or mine, which he held in captivity. Satan did not realize that wrapped in human flesh was the deity of Christ - the ability to conquer death, hell and the grave. It lay dormant, in hibernation. All the power to break the chains of sin waited for that moment.
The deity of Christ was hidden so that Satan would accept Jesus as the ransom. Did God deceive Satan? Satan gained his initial advantage over man through deception, God was only offering the same bait, and Satan took it hook, line, and sinker.
You’re free. You’re unfettered. You’re unchained. Now, go live like it. Take back that which the enemy has stolen. Go and announce your freedom from captivity. His power no longer holds you in bondage. When you sin, don’t go back to ground zero. Confess. Repent. Receive a clean slate and keep going.
Three Insights about Rejection
1. Learn to distinguish between rejection and selection. (David - 1 Samuel 16:7)
2. Rejection that comes from your family is the most painful. (Joseph - Genesis 37:17b – 18)
3. Some rejection is a part of God’s will to humble us. (Saul – 1 Samuel 15:23)
How To Overcome Rejection and Loneliness
1. Allow God’s ransom to atone for your sin. It is much easier to handle rejection when your heart is clean and your sins are forgiven.
2. Assimilate back into the human race. Get in a small group. Build relationships. Move from isolation to involvement.
3. Alter what you can change. If there are areas of your life that can be changed, do it! Put the effort into getting that degree, ask for forgiveness, loose some weight.
4. Accept what you can’t change. All of us have unchangeable features. Let them go. Let those unchangeable features become a part of your life message and be used for God’s glory.
We have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not us. We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted but not abandoned (forsaken); struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:7-9 NIV)
If you look at us, you might well miss the brightness. We carry this precious Message around in the unadorned clay pots of our ordinary lives. That’s to prevent anyone from confusing God’s incomparable power with us. As it is, there’s not much chance of that. You know for yourselves that we’re not much to look at. We’ve been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we’re not demoralized; we’re not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we’ve been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn’t left our side; we’ve been thrown down, but we haven’t been broken. (2 Corinthians 4:7-9 MSG)
Be Encouraged, God Is For You!
So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times; the lavish celebration prepared for us. There is far more here than meets the eye. The things we see here today are gone tomorrow. But the things that we can’t see will last forever. (2 Corinthians 4:16 MSG)
Our Mission, God’s Message, Your Move!
Every message ends with the proclamation!
…Will you? It’s your move!
I am sending you off to open the eyes of outsiders so they can see the difference between dark and light, and choose light, see the difference between Satan and God, and choose God. I am sending you off to present My offer of sins forgiven, and a place in the family, inviting them into the company of those who begin real living by believing in Me. (Acts 26:18 - MSG)
End Notes
1. Max Lucado. No Wonder They Call Him The Savior. Multnomah Press, Sisters, Oregon. 1986, pg. 45.
2. Ibid, pg. 47.
3. Kenneth Wuest. Wuest’s Word Studies, Volume 1, William B. Eerdman, Grand Rapid Michigan, 1973, pg. 283.
4. Laura Chick. Covering Sin. Leadership Magazine: To Illustrate, 1988, pg. 44.
