Morning, April 15

Charles Spurgeon · Morning and Evening: Daily Readings

"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?"