Is God Absent?
Is God Absent?
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent – April 3, 2020
During the current moment’s COVID-19-induced alteration of rhythms and life-practices, with the onset of fear and uncertainty, I’m hearing people talk about God’s apparent absence.
“Where is God now?”
“How could God allow this pandemic?”
“Why doesn’t God do something?”
All are legitimate questions, probably ones that have crossed all our minds at some point, a quick, fleeting thought.
Perhaps those expressions are healthy in a time like this. I know they certainly don’t shake God. In fact, I’m confident they say more about us than they say about God.
You’ve heard people say, perhaps, “God showed up in this situation or in that event!” We have our own notions of how God is present, sometimes measured by some external results that come from the event, or sometimes by our own goose-bumpy feelings about the situation.
Not to completely discredit any of that, but God is bigger than all those feelings or tangible results. God is not boxed in by our ideas of how and when and why God “shows up.” Actually, I think God is trying to wean us from the “God showed up” mentality and do life as if God were present always (in time) and everywhere (in place).
Even Jesus had the sense of God’s absence, when from the cross he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” But then, moments later, as he breathed his last, he said, “God, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
During this experience of the coronoavirus desert, those are the two things we hold together . . . the sense that sometimes it’s tough to notice the presence of God . . . and at the same time, our deep need to commend ourselves and our times into the hands of God.
Charles Cummings addresses this aspect of the desert in today’s excerpt.
When we reflect on the moment of Jesus’ death we do so with greatest reverence and respect because we confront here a mystery that is beyond our comprehension. For the sake of bringing the whole human race into the beatifying presence of God, Jesus endured the experience of God’s excruciating absence: “My God, why have you deserted me?” The cross was a moment of dreadful dereliction and solitude for Jesus, yet “God was never nearer His Son than when He cried out from the cross that He had been abandoned.” We stand in wonder before this mystery.
I think we have to give equal importance to these two words of Jesus on the cross, not stressing one more than the other. By keeping both poles of his experience together, we stay faithful to the full truth of that incomprehensible moment. Jesus truly felt deserted by his Father. Yet so great was his trust that his Father would never desert him, he could confidently commend himself into his Father’s hands with his dying breath. Jesus could discern the loving presence of his Father in spite of and beyond the doubt that rose from the felt absence of that Father.
[Charles Cummings, Spirituality and the Desert Experience (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1978).]
For reflection:
o I ponder God’s presence in times when I feel abandoned. Where, today, have I seen evidence of God’s love and mercy, God’s shalom (wholistic peace) and compassion?
o I wonder, “Is God limited to my experience or understanding of God’s presence?” What do you think?
o Psalm 88 is the prayer of a person overcome with troubles. The last line of the psalm is, “Darkness is my only friend.” Perhaps today you would pray with Psalm 88 and see if there are parts of the psalm that resonate with you.
o Perhaps after you pray Psalm 88, you would spend a few moments writing your own version of Psalm 88. Put it into your own words. You don’t have to soften your language. God can take it.
Friday of the Fifth Week of Lent – April 3, 2020
During the current moment’s COVID-19-induced alteration of rhythms and life-practices, with the onset of fear and uncertainty, I’m hearing people talk about God’s apparent absence.
“Where is God now?”
“How could God allow this pandemic?”
“Why doesn’t God do something?”
All are legitimate questions, probably ones that have crossed all our minds at some point, a quick, fleeting thought.
Perhaps those expressions are healthy in a time like this. I know they certainly don’t shake God. In fact, I’m confident they say more about us than they say about God.
You’ve heard people say, perhaps, “God showed up in this situation or in that event!” We have our own notions of how God is present, sometimes measured by some external results that come from the event, or sometimes by our own goose-bumpy feelings about the situation.
Not to completely discredit any of that, but God is bigger than all those feelings or tangible results. God is not boxed in by our ideas of how and when and why God “shows up.” Actually, I think God is trying to wean us from the “God showed up” mentality and do life as if God were present always (in time) and everywhere (in place).
Even Jesus had the sense of God’s absence, when from the cross he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” But then, moments later, as he breathed his last, he said, “God, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
During this experience of the coronoavirus desert, those are the two things we hold together . . . the sense that sometimes it’s tough to notice the presence of God . . . and at the same time, our deep need to commend ourselves and our times into the hands of God.
Charles Cummings addresses this aspect of the desert in today’s excerpt.
When we reflect on the moment of Jesus’ death we do so with greatest reverence and respect because we confront here a mystery that is beyond our comprehension. For the sake of bringing the whole human race into the beatifying presence of God, Jesus endured the experience of God’s excruciating absence: “My God, why have you deserted me?” The cross was a moment of dreadful dereliction and solitude for Jesus, yet “God was never nearer His Son than when He cried out from the cross that He had been abandoned.” We stand in wonder before this mystery.
I think we have to give equal importance to these two words of Jesus on the cross, not stressing one more than the other. By keeping both poles of his experience together, we stay faithful to the full truth of that incomprehensible moment. Jesus truly felt deserted by his Father. Yet so great was his trust that his Father would never desert him, he could confidently commend himself into his Father’s hands with his dying breath. Jesus could discern the loving presence of his Father in spite of and beyond the doubt that rose from the felt absence of that Father.
[Charles Cummings, Spirituality and the Desert Experience (Denville, NJ: Dimension Books, 1978).]
For reflection:
o I ponder God’s presence in times when I feel abandoned. Where, today, have I seen evidence of God’s love and mercy, God’s shalom (wholistic peace) and compassion?
o I wonder, “Is God limited to my experience or understanding of God’s presence?” What do you think?
o Psalm 88 is the prayer of a person overcome with troubles. The last line of the psalm is, “Darkness is my only friend.” Perhaps today you would pray with Psalm 88 and see if there are parts of the psalm that resonate with you.
o Perhaps after you pray Psalm 88, you would spend a few moments writing your own version of Psalm 88. Put it into your own words. You don’t have to soften your language. God can take it.
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