Spurgeon: April AM
* 04/15/AM
"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
--Psalm 22:1
We here behold the Saviour in the depth of His sorrows. No
other place so well shows the griefs of Christ as Calvary, and
no other moment at Calvary is so full of agony as that in which
His cry rends the air--"My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken
me?" At this moment physical weakness was united with acute
mental torture from the shame and ignominy through which He had
to pass; and to make His grief culminate with emphasis, He
suffered spiritual agony surpassing all expression, resulting
from the departure of His Father's presence. This was the black
midnight of His horror; then it was that He descended the abyss
of suffering. No man can enter into the full meaning of these
words. Some of us think at times that we could cry, "My God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" There are seasons when the
brightness of our Father's smile is eclipsed by clouds and
darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsake
us. It is only a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ's case
it was a real forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our
Father's love; but the real turning away of God's face from His
Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony which it caused Him?
In our case, our cry is often dictated by unbelief: in His
case, it was the utterance of a dreadful fact, for God had
really turned away from Him for a season. O thou poor,
distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God's face,
but art now in darkness, remember that He has not really
forsaken thee. God in the clouds is as much our God as when He
shines forth in all the lustre of His grace; but since even the
thought that He has forsaken us gives us agony, what must the
woe of the Saviour have been when He exclaimed, "My God, my God,
why hast Thou forsaken me?"