Today’s Lenten Word Meditation comes from Psalm 22 NRSV:
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.
The word, forsaken (asavta in Hebrew), means leave, forsake, loose. Jesus cried the same first verse of Psalm 22 when he was suffering and dying on the Cross. Jesus was abandoned and left to die alone. It is a prayer/cry of anguish….you can feel the hopeless.
Today I sit, hold, and pray with the word, forsaken. It reminds me of when I was volunteering at an AIDS hospice in the early 1990s. So many men were dying alone as their families had forsaken them. We never let any of our precious siblings die alone and made sure we were there touching and holding and speaking and listening.
It is an uncomfortable word, forsaken. Have I forsaken anyone? Have I left anyone without hope? What would I do if I saw Jesus dying on the Cross?
My heart is troubled….
