And I have the picture in my mind of Jacob wrestling with the Lord, all night long.

Call to Worship For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man! Psalm 107:15

Confession God of love, it is Your will that we should love You with heart, soul, mind, strength, and our neighbor as ourselves, but we are not sufficient for these things. We confess that our affections continually turn away from you: from purity to lust, from freedom to slavery, from compassion to indifference, from fullness to emptiness. Have mercy on us. Order our lives by your holy Word, and make your commandments the joy of our hearts. Conform us to the image of your loving Son, Jesus, that we may shine before the world to Your glory. Amen.

Contemplation The deepest longing of our soul is the all-satisfying hesed of God—not in the abstract, but first-hand knowledge and experience, a tasting of God’s hesed. Have you been delivered by the hand of God, tasted His mercy, seen His power, heard His word, felt His presence?

He, who knew no sin, became sin, and in that moment, he took up the lament of King David: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” When he said this he not only took our sin upon himself, but also voiced all our laments. For underlying all our laments are two questions: “God, where are you?” and, “God, if you love me, then why?”

Lament is the path that takes us to the place where we discover that there is no complete answer to pain and suffering, only Presence.

One of the reflection questions for today is “How would the presence of God be more satisfying to you than answers from God?” 


Certainly this is the Big Question. Am I enough? Am I your longing? Does your soul pant for Me as a deer pants for flowing streams?

The Lord is my Shepherd. I shall not want. I am satisfied.

He is my green pastures.  He is my cool waters. He restores me.

You, and You alone will make me glad.

Our Friday night group grappled with what is idolatry last night. And idolatry is anything but Him. Period. No ifs, ands or but.

You alone are my heart’s desire.

Prayer Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

The dark will end the dark, if anything

When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished,” and He bowed his head and gave up His spirit.  John 19:29

Yesterday afternoon I tapped on Nicole’s door.  “Just a minute, just a minute,” tap tap tap.  “Come in.”

It is finished.  The book Nicole has hauled around the world and back again in her very cracked and duct-taped with twirly designs painted on with glitter marker MacBook is finished.  

Jesus Christ, in His last heaving words on the cross before he gives up His spirit cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s a cry of pain, and suffering, but it’s also a victory cry of dominion restored.  He is referencing Psalm 22, that starts out with that question of desperation, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

In this moment of vulnerability He references the Psalm that foretold His death a thousand years before and described the scene before Him --from the moment of Gethsemane, to the dividing of his clothes.  This verse of the prophet captures the restless night before of “my groaning--O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.” He is surrounded by his enemies who are religious, “All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads: Commit your cause to the Lord; let Him deliver—let Him rescue the one in whom he delights!” as well as sinners, “For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled...they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots. (v. 8-18)

The question Christ asks is one of tremendous pain, but as He calls out, “Why?” He is in fact calling out the answer to those who have ears.  “All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!  For He did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him...The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.” (v. 23-27) The Psalmist cries out humanity’s question, and foretells God’s answer in Christ. 

What appears as this triumph of pain on the cross is the breaking in of the Kingdom. It’s the answer to humanity’s suffering, its horror of abandonment, and its need for redemption. Christ is the mediator--fully human, fully God.  He entered into our suffering fully a man who has been undeservingly betrayed, abandoned, and condemned. He cries out as a son of Adam, “Why have you abandoned me.”  It’s the cry from a son to a Father, and yet as God, he is the answer to that question.  God has fully united himself to us on the cross.   Identifying himself to us, becoming a living sacrifice of love in the very moment of greatest shame, persecution, betrayal, and shame.  Isaiah 53:5 says, “But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed.”

That exchange is the realm of the kingdom that I have seen break in again and again, from the look on the face of the heroin addict in my eight-year-old bedroom, to this gangster before me.  There is a reality of the kingdom that is stronger and truer than the worst that this world can do.  Christ’s cry is from a son to a father, and as God He triumphs as the answer to humanity cry for all time.  We are not abandoned.

From his moment of suffering, Christ pointed to you and me.  The answer he gave us through his “Why” was for you, for me, for my friend Johnny, to this condemned gang slayer who was raised by the fists and curses of his father.  Christ suffered so that in our suffering–in our sin–in our darkness–God does not hide His face from us.  His “Why” is that the poor will eat and be satisfied, and all who seek Him will find Him. His “Why” is that the “ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before Him.”  

Dominion Restored

Everything that was handed over to Satan in the garden has been restored. As the answer to the Psalmist’s “Why” concludes, “For dominion belongs to the Lord, and He rules over the nations.  To Him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before Him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim His deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that He has done it.” (v. 28-31) Christ fully and perfectly suffered the injustice of all that was wrong in the world, but in this single cry utters both the agony and glory of the finishing-line words, “I have done it.”