“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus’ cry from the cross wrenches our hearts and halts us in our tracks. Surely, Jesus didn’t really feel deserted by God, did he? He must just have just been echoing the words of the psalmist (Ps.22:1), right? After all, Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the Holy Trinity; how could he possibly experience such utterly human desolation? We know the answer, of course, as Paul reminds us in his epistle to the Philippians today: “Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…being born in human likeness…humbled himself…to the point of death—even death on a cross.” As we affirm in our Eucharistic liturgy Sunday after Sunday, “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man.” Jesus was completely human, born of woman just like you and me, and therefore well acquainted with the entire gamut of the physical, mental, and emotional delight and agony that we experience in our lives today. He wasn’t holding on to a “Get Out of Jail Free” card that allowed him to bypass Good Friday.

We don’t like to focus on the passion of Good Friday. We’d much rather jump from the excitement of Palm Sunday to the triumph of Easter. But life is not like that. It wasn’t for Jesus, and it isn’t for us. We simply can’t get to the resurrection of Easter without the experience of Good Friday. We have to die to our old way of life before we can be raised up to new life—that’s the only way it works. The movement from death to life is not quick and easy; it is not pain-free. There is grief and desolation and despair during the interminable limbo of Holy Saturday. It may feel like we have been forsaken by God, but as the plaque on my kitchen wall attests, “Bidden or unbidden, God is present.” (Jung)

Regardless of what it may feel like at the time, the steadfast love of God never deserts us. God is faithful; he will never leave us or forsake us; he will be with us always, even unto the end of the age. Christ Jesus, Emmanuel, walks with us through all the Good Fridays and Holy Saturdays of our lives, raising us to new life when we are ready for the dawn of Easter.