The SS hanged two Jewish men
and a youth in front of the whole camp.
The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half
an hour. ‘Where is God? Where is he?’ someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in the
noose after a long time, I heard the man call again, ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice in myself answer: ‘Where
is he? He is here. He is hanging there on the gallows.’
In his memoir, Night, Elie Wiesel describes his
experiences in Auschwitz. He writes:
Never shall I forget that
night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night,
seven times cursed and seven times sealed…
Never shall I forget those
flames which consumed my faith forever.
Never
shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of
the desire to live. Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God
and my soul and turned my dreams to dust. Never shall I forget these things,
even if I am condemned to live as long as God Himself. Never.
My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
A pregnant mother living in a
war zone fears to travel in her condition, so her husband and children go on
ahead. But the fighting worsens and she
makes the difficult decision to start the
long, long walk to the Lebanese border and on, to Beirut. On the way, she realises her baby has died,
but has no access to medical care.
Finally arriving in Lebanon, she falls into a depression.
My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
In Brussels, a father plays with his four-year-old
twin daughters at the airport while his wife stands nearby. The girls wander off and he follows them;
then the building is racked by an explosion.
In all the confusion afterwards, he cannot find his wife. Eventually he learns that she has been killed
by the blast.
My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
In the north of England, a young woman is
befriended by a group of men who pay attention to her and give her presents,
alcohol and other drugs. Then they force
her to do things she doesn’t want to do.
The local authorities don’t seem to notice or care. It’s the kind of thing girls like her get up
to.
My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
A child just out of his babyhood becomes ill, and
receives a terrible diagnosis. His
parents are forced to trek back and forth between their home and a London
hospital, watching him undergo treatments his little body can barely stand, in
the hope they will make him well.
My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
On the surface, everything seems fine: the image
she presents to the world is strong, confident and successful. But inside, she is crumbling. Some mornings, she can barely find the
strength to get out of bed. The drugs
she takes give her a small amount of energy back, but life seems dull and
joyless. On some days, there seems
little point in carrying on.
My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Jesus Christ has lived his life in obedience to his
heavenly father. He has healed the sick,
cast out demons, even raised the dead.
He has enjoyed a close intimacy with his Father in heaven through his
dedication to prayer and his sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Crowds have followed him, hanging on his
every word; people have travelled far to ask for his healing power. He has walked in obedience to God every step
of the way and now things appear to have gone very, very wrong.
One friend betrays him
Most of the others abandon him
Only one friend remains, but he denies he even
knows him.
Jesus is questioned
Beaten
Humiliated
Sentenced to death
And taken to a hill outside the city where he is
nailed to a cross and left, naked and in great pain, to die in front of jeering
crowds.
My
God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
Jesus was human, and as a
human being he was frightened, traumatised and in great pain.
He wondered where his God had
gone, as perhaps we might have done in the same situation
The Son of God, apparently
abandoned by God.
From him, too, God was, for a
moment, hidden
Jesus came to be with us
He lived among us
He lived as one of us
He shared our joys and he
shared our agonies too
Like those who suffer
depression, he too felt the pain of despair when all hope was gone
Like those who are sick, he
too experienced bodily suffering too great to bear
Like those who are abused, he
too was abused by others for their amusement
A person treated as a thing
with no rights and no feelings
He, too, experienced death
The Father experienced what it
was to lose a child
Suffering and even death was
taken up into the Godhead
God carried death inside
him
God took upon himself the
terrible burden of sin, sorrow and brokenness of a hurting world
And because the Son of God was
Godforsaken
Because on that one day he
felt what it was to have everything stripped away but his pain
Because he was there in that
darkness then,
he is there always
Because he was there, we can
never be alone in that dark place
There is no place where God is
not
As another survivor of the
camps wrote, ‘There is no pit so deep that he is not deeper still’
And I am convinced
that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life,
neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about
tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. No
power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation
will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in
Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 8.38-39
The SS hanged two Jewish
men and a youth in front of the whole camp.
The men died quickly, but the death throes of the youth lasted for half
an hour. ‘Where is God? Where is he?’ someone asked behind me. As the youth still hung in torment in the
noose after a long time, I heard the man call again, ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard a voice in myself answer: ‘Where
is he? He is here. He is hanging there on the gallows.’
God is not dead.
God died,
He inhabited death
And then he destroyed it.
And that is a story for another day.
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