Stricken and Forsaken (Ps. 69)

Editor's Comment: NO ONE KNOWS HIS PAIN

Personal pain is so lonely. No one else can go through it with us. Yes, some may sympathize, perhaps because of similar or shared experiences. But our pain is our own, alone!

Apart from our sufferings, we know there are fellow humans - millions of them – having undergone or undergoing unimaginable suffering, pain, and loneliness. Currently, this includes Gazans, Ukrainians, the impoverished, starving, and diseased, etc. Almost 2000 humans suffered and died this past week from an earthquake. Children are abused and trafficked worldwide. And on and on. In every instance, a human being is undergoing or has undergone pain, dread, fear, loneliness, and the spectrum of horrors, one by one. They cry out, and no one hears or truly understands.

We live in a broken world under the curse of sin. Yet, for every human who suffers, there is One who knows our pain. In this season of Lent, in the Christian faith tradition, we refresh our recollection of the suffering God’s beloved son, Jesus, endured.

The present segment of Handel’s “Messiah” testifies to this. Also, the Book of Hebrews tells us, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15) We know that Jesus wept for others’ suffering, that his soul was deeply troubled as he anticipated the cross (even asking the Father to remove it, but only by His will), and that “for the joy that was set before him, [Jesus] endured the cross, despising its shame” (Heb. 12:20).

None of us knows the alienation, fury, and loneliness suffered by Jesus on our behalf. And why did he suffer? God is just and holy: there must be recompense for every wrong, every sin. Why did the Father send Jesus? Why did Jesus suffer?

LOVE!

“For God so loved the world that he gave is only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.” (Jn. 3:16) Love and suffering, in God’s design, are not mutually exclusive. Christ suffered so we could be reconciled and enter into Eternal Love, Life, and Fellowship. Sin, suffering, and loneliness shall be forever banished.

Listen to and watch the performances (via the linked page below). Try to imagine Jesus’s loneliness and sorrow, yet in the hope of redemption and freedom.

MAY GOD’S PEACE AND LOVE IN CHRIST JESUS BE YOURS.

Video Presentations

29. Accompagnato (tenor)  / 30. Arioso (tenor) [2:56]

-- "Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none." (Psalm 69, v.20)

--"Behold and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow" (Lamentations 1, v.12)

31. Accompagnato (tenor) [2:40] – “who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people?” (Isaiah 53, v.8)