3. The God Who Hears the Cry

3. The God Who Hears the Cry

Psalm 22 — Abandonment

We know the stories of God’s faithfulness. We have heard how others prayed and found help, how they trusted and were delivered. And then something happens to us, and the stories don’t seem to fit any more. We pray, we wait, and nothing changes. We begin to wonder where God is.

Psalm 22 begins with that cry.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” — Psalm 22:1 (NIV)

The psalmist remembers the faith of those who went before him. They cried out to God and were delivered. They trusted, and God rescued them. But now he is the one crying out, and there is no rescue in sight.

Still, he says my God.

He cannot see what God is doing. He cannot understand the silence. Yet he continues to address the God he cannot find. This is not a settled faith. It is faith struggling to speak from the dark.

At Lighthouse, we meet people whose experience of abandonment goes back years, sometimes to childhood. People who should have kept them safe have hurt them. Promises have been broken. People have walked away. Some have spent so long trying to get someone to listen that they have almost given up asking.

There are wounds

that outlast the moment.

The danger may have passed.

The door may have opened.

But some part of you

is still waiting

for someone to come back.

We should never assume we know another person’s story. Nor should we make suffering sound holy, as though being abandoned by others somehow brings us closer to God. Abandonment hurts. It can leave people frightened, angry and unable to trust. The consequences may remain long after the circumstances have changed.

And then there is Jesus.

As he hangs on the cross, he takes the words of Psalm 22 onto his own lips:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The hands that healed

are wounded.

The one who welcomed

is driven out.

The one who called God

Father

cries out,

Why have you forsaken me?

Jesus is not offering a detached commentary on human pain. He is dying, exposed to public shame and violence, crying out from the depths of his anguish.

In Jesus, God enters a world where bodies are broken, people are humiliated and the powerful decide who gets to live and who must die.

And that has consequences for how we see people.

In a city, suffering can become part of the scenery. Someone sleeping in a doorway. Someone asking for money. Another person lost to addiction, another death on the streets. We may feel a moment of sadness and carry on with our day. After a while, we barely notice.

The cross asks us to look again.

The suffering of people who are homeless, abused or struggling with addiction is not identical to the suffering of Jesus. Their lives are their own, and their pain should never be turned into an illustration. But if Christ entered the depths of human humiliation, we cannot confine his presence to respectable places or people who know how to speak the language of faith.

The crucified Christ is not ashamed to stand among the abandoned.

Perhaps the harder question is whether we are willing to stand there too.

Psalm 22 does not end with the cry of abandonment. Its horizon widens. The afflicted will eat and be satisfied; the ends of the earth will turn towards the Lord. The psalm imagines a day when suffering will not have the final word.

But we mustn’t rush towards that ending. Some people pray for years and see little change. Some die with their questions unanswered. Their suffering is not made less real by the promise of resurrection. We should never use hope to silence their grief.

The risen Jesus is the one who was crucified. Resurrection does not erase what was done to him. The wounds remain part of his story.

At Lighthouse, we cannot undo what has happened to people. We cannot promise that every story will turn out well. But we can refuse to abandon people a second time. We can listen, make room for difficult questions, and stay when someone else’s pain makes us uncomfortable.

Sometimes there is no answer to give. There is just another person beside you, and the decision to remain.

And perhaps that is where we begin to learn something of the God we meet at the cross.

We do not have to pretend the darkness isn’t there. We do not have to find the right words or manufacture a certainty we do not feel.

We can pray from within it.

Question to carry: Where have you experienced abandonment, and what might it mean to bring that experience honestly before God?

My God, my God,

I have asked for help.

I have waited.

I don’t understand your silence.

Some things have been done to me

that should never have happened.

Some people have left

who should have stayed.

Jesus, you know this cry.

You have entered this darkness.

Stay close to those

who have nobody to turn to.

And teach us not to turn away.

When we have no words left,

when faith feels far beyond us,

meet us here.

My God, my God.

I am still calling.

Amen.