God is with us

“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli,[a] lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).” Matthew 27:46

Jesus on the cross experiences what millions of people have experienced throughout hundreds of thousands of generations. God did not intervene, because the Divine sometimes does not do so.

There are those who say that they did, that they received a miracle from heaven. There are those who wait with hope for one. There are those who pray, negotiate money, do penance, promises, and even self-flagellate to propitiate the needed miracle. God can do miracles, but too many times the Divinity chooses not to intervene.

Thus, the sacrificed King of the Jews lives in the first person, the abandonment of a God to whom all trust has been declared. It is not a sin that Jesus commits by exclaiming this phrase in the place of agony. It is not a sin that, today, some of us do the same in the midst of the darkest difficulties of life.

The question that the one who hung on the tree shouted and that had no answer.
He finally died. 

The outcome was as expected. The one which was feared in Gethsemane,
Where the prayer did not have an affirmative answer either, 
“If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” 

But it was not possible.

Although it was not the end point, it was anguishing, hopeless, devastating.

The son suffered.
And the Father did not intervene.
But the Father accompanied him.

The Father loved him in silence.
The Father kissed him.
The Father cried.

The Father suffered with him.

Abandonment has a lonely face in the midst of agony. Jesus incarnated it, and God did what he usually did. The Divine waited.

Nevertheless, God’s answer to death is always life. 

God’s answer to evil is new beginnings. 

Jesus is risen. God is with us!

Warmly,

Ps. David Gaitan