Today's passage is Matthew 27:45-56.
From noon till three it was dark. Jesus asked God why he was abandoned, echoing Ps.22. After a drink of vinegar, Jesus cried out and died. At that moment, the curtain in the temple was torn in two, an earthquake shook the land, tombs opened and holy people were resurrected. In terror, the centurion and the guards declared Jesus was the Son of God. Many women who had cared for Jesus watched from a distance.
What did people think about the sudden three hour darkness? What is my darkness?
I have many examples from my past when it was so dark for me that God didn't seem to be there. The longer the darkness lasted the scarier it got.
I needed those times of fear, of God-emptiness, because my dark times always began with the loss of something worldly, a girlfriend, a valued motorcyle, a wife, a job, my health. It's almost as if God pushed my darkness of loss into even darker darkness so that I would have a glimpse of life without him.
I remember the time when I first came to Korea.
I left Canada in despair, my life in ruins.
The despair came with me. It took almost two years to change.
At my lowest point, I looked up from by Bible reading and said to God, "You're not there, are you?"
That was my way of saying, "Why have you abandoned me?" It took me a long time to understand self-centred the question is.
It took me a long time to understand that the question is as much a testing of God as the chief priests' tauntings of Jesus were.
Basically, it's asking, "Where are you, God?"
It took me a long time to understand that abandonment is also a choice on my part. I narrow the world to my pain and my need. In that moment I choose not to see God and I give up.
A few months after my question to God in Korea, I went with a group of fellow workers to a dance studio to learn the waltz.
The instructor was my wife Kim Jin Kyeong.Very soon love entered my life again but it too, like despair, was a choice.
I chose love and the world grew big with God. It was like walking out of a tomb.
Lord, let me not narrow my life to my pain and my suffering. Help me repent. Let me not abandon myself to the darkness of despair. Give me the courage to choose you, to turn to you always and call out your name in hope and love.
