Reading: Psalm 22

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It was the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter of my senior year at Loyola. I was in Florida surrounded by family and loved ones. In stark contrast to the sunshine and palm trees, the mood was uneasy, tense, and somber. Our hearts felt hollow, and numb. Instead of mourning the death of Jesus, we were mourning the loss of my 23-year-old cousin Connor who had died by suicide several days earlier. Flooded with grief and sorrow, we spent our time sharing memories, asking hard questions, and wondering why. Why did this happen? How could this have happened? Why did God forsake us?

That morning before the visitation began there was time set apart specifically for family members to walk up to the casket and say goodbye. As I made my way through the double wooden doors that led way to the sanctuary, I was greeted by a sharp crispness in the air, one that was defined by finitude, grief, and the pains of human reality. Alongside one of my cousins, I made my way to the front and said my tear-filled goodbyes before taking a seat in one of the pews. 

As I sat down, I heard the doors open from behind us and turned to see my aunt, Connor’s mom, walking through the doors into the sanctuary. She was flanked on both sides by my cousins, her remaining son and daughter. As she walked towards the front, she stumbled with almost every step, my cousins holding her up to keep her from collapsing. It took everything in her to make what seemed like a mile-long walk to the casket. To see the pain, the sorrow, the agony at the loss of her son… it was unbearable. Worse than saying my own goodbyes was seeing the grief of a loving mother say goodbye to her son.

Looking back, I can’t help but imagine that is how Mary the Mother of Jesus felt on the day her son was crucified. And not just Mary, but God the Father as well.

Sometimes it can feel like God has forsaken us, that he is far away, and does not answer our cries (vs 1-2). When I wonder where God is in the suffering, I am reminded that he knows suffering all too well. God has not ignored us or turned his back on us, but instead he has heard our cries for help (vs 24). He responds with a story of redemption and resurrection that none of us deserve, but could only hope to be true.

While my cousin’s death didn’t have the same resurrection ending as Jesus’ did, we know that death does not have the final word and we trust that we will see our sweet Connor again in heaven.

And so, we wait. We sit in the already but not yet of death and resurrection. We have hope. Hope that comes when the new day dawns. But until then, we lament the pain and the hardships of this life. We turn to God in our confusion and unknowns. We ask ourselves “Why oh God have you forsaken me?” and we sit and wait, knowing that our God hears every cry and every prayer. And through it all, he has resurrection and new life waiting for us on the other side.