Article March 28, 1988 Issue

Never forsaken

The Christian Science Monitor

When the crucifixion came, Jesus was virtually alone. Only a few stood by out of love and loyalty, including his mother and his disciple John. The multitudes who had eagerly listened to him preach, the many he had healed and saved from sin or "had compassion on," were gone. The cross not only brought physical agony and humiliation. It must also have brought tremendous loneliness. To the man who had forsaken no one, these hours were marked by every evidence of separation.

In this supreme ordeal Jesus sought God—as he always had. But beset on every side with stark images of failure, darkness, isolation, he cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?"^{ Matt. 27:46.}

These words also open a psalm from the Old Testament, which some believe Jesus was actually recalling in prayer. Whether or not this is so, the psalm has lessons to teach that go beyond the historical to the spiritual. The hymn begins in despair. But it ends, even as the resurrection ended the crucifixion, in triumph.

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