THE FAMILY ALTAR - F.W. Herzberger (1922)

March 31.

"My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" Matt. 21:46.

    "God by God forsaken ! Who can grasp it ?" Luther exclaims,

overwhelmed by this soul-piercing cry of our dying Lord. We can

gaze only from afar, and in holy trembling awe, at this mystery

of mysteries : Christ, God's incarnate Son, forsaken for three long

hours by God Himself ! Who can grasp it ? 

The sudden, terrifying gloom that overcast the earth at full midday when the very sun seemed blotted out from the heavens was a reflection of the fearsome and impenetrable darkness that now filled our dying Savior's soul.

     His heavenly Father, the central Sun of His life, now hid His gracious face from Him. He now beheld nothing but the forbidding countenance of the angry, avenging, holy Judge.

    God had now become cruel to Him (Job 30, 21), and made Him

to be sin for us, and suffered Him to expiate the very last and

extremest penalty of sin — separation from God, the divine

source of all life and happiness. He now dwells in that outer

darkness where there is weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of

teeth, where the terrors of the damned consist in this very thing,

that they are forsaken forever by God ! 0 wonderful, 0 adorable

Savior ! 

    Though God in His just anger on account of sin forsakes

Him, He does not forsake God, but clings to Him with the trust-

ful cry : "My God !" In His agony our sin was judged and con-

demned ; in His cry of faith : "My God !" are we saved. Faith

in Him is now the way to God's paternal heart in our darkest

night of woe. That we can believe in Him, and through Him

find a merciful God and Father in heaven, we owe to this divine

victory of faith on the cross. 

    Who now puts his faith in Him can never be entirely forsaken by God, but can always fly to Him in his bitterest grief, with this trustful prayer in his heart and on his lips : —

0 God, forsake me not! 

O God, forsake me not!

But lead, full of compassion, 

Take not Thy Spirit from me,

With loving hands Thy child, 

And suffer not the might

That I may gain salvation, 

Of sin to overcome me;

When here my course is run ; 

Increase my feeble faith,

Be Thou my Light, my Lot, 

Which Thou Thyself hast wrought;

My Staff, my Rock, my Be 

Thou my Strength and

Shield, — Power, —

0 God, forsake me not! 

O God, forsake me not!