Good Friday (Year B - LCMS Revised Readings)
Friday, April 18, 2003
I am—yet what I am, none cares or knows;
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes—
They rise and vanish in oblivion’s host,
Like shadows in love, frenzied stifled throes—
And yet I am, and live—like vapours tossed
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life or joys,
But the vast shipwreck of life’s esteems;
Even the dearest that I love the best
Are strange—nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man hath never trod,
A place where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,
The grass below—above, the vaulted sky.
This poem was written by John Clare, a poet who lived in the mid-1800’s. The poem resonates with sadness, grief, depression, which could all lead to despair, to a lack of hope. When I remembered this poem this past week, it seemed to be written to echo all the feelings of this dark Friday, all the feelings of Jesus on the cross.
The people have turned their backs on Jesus. No one seems to understand who He truly was or why He was doing this. His friends had forsaken Him, the disciples scattering and denying Him at the time of His arrest. They have become strangers to Him. All of His hopes for being the Savior of the people seem to be like a shipwreck as He is nailed to the cross. Now, all He hopes for is to be in heaven with God the Father, a place of sweet bliss.
The poem echoes all of these thoughts that Christ may have had, but most importantly, the poem expresses hope. Christ in being on the cross knew the feeling of being separated from God, felt the agony of eternal separation from His loving Father, but we see that He also speaks of His hope.
This poem by John Clare isn’t that much different from Psalm 22, which Jesus spoke on the cross. Jesus spoke the first line of Psalm 22, and we are probably meant to think of the whole psalm. This psalm talks about how hopeless the situation seemed to be, but it also speaks about hope like Clare’s poem.
My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from saving me,
So far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but You do not answer,
By night, and am not silent.
Yet, You are enthroned as the Holy One;
You are the praise of Israel.
In You our fathers put their trust;
They trusted and You delivered them.
They cried to You and were saved;
In You they trusted and were not disappointed.
But I am a worm and not a man,
Scorned by men and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
They hurl insults, shaking their heads:
“He trusts in the Lord;
Let the Lord rescue him.
Let God deliver him,
Since he delights in God.”
Yet you brought me out of the womb;
You made me trust in You
Even at my mother’s breast.
From birth I was cast upon You;
From my mother’s womb You have been my God.
Do not be far from me,
For trouble is near
And there is no one to help.
Christ in speaking this psalm is voicing His true feelings of sadness, grief, feelings of abandonment, but He is also speaking those stanzas of hope, those lines which declare that His trust is in God, and in God is victory. He on the one hand says, “I am a worm.” In other words, He is the lowest of the low, He is beneath everything else, He is associated with filth and dirt and decay. He feels as if He is a worm and not a man.
But He is a worm that trusts in God. He feels as if He has been tramped down into the mud, but His eyes remained fixed on God. He feels as if He is a worm left out on a rock drying out in the sun, but His heart still clings to the hope in the Lord. He trusts in God even though His face has been pressed down into the muck of life.
I see this same movement in Clare’s poem. I am a worm who trusts in God. Clare voices all of those feelings of depression, but then he comes back and voices his trust and hope that he will one day be in a place of bliss, in heaven with God. Christ and Clare give us words for this most tragic day, the day when our Savior was put to death, but they are words which will remind us of our hope so that this dark Friday becomes Good Friday. Christ knew that God would take this terrible situation and use it for His divine plan of love.
Of course, that did not keep Jesus from voicing His utter terror at what He was going through. We too can voice our feelings when at times we feel as if there is no hope. We too can say, “I am a worm.” We cannot ignore those feelings, and in many cases, those feelings are not sinful in themselves. We can voice those feelings to God and to each other, but all the while, we need to remember the Truth—that there is hope, that God does care for us, that He is with us every step of the way. I am a worm who trusts in God.
Yet, Satan wants us to cash in all of our hope and exchange it for despair. He’d love to fill us up with despair. He sneaks up on us when we’re already prepped, already feeling quite low. He then wants to take our honest feelings and add to them a lie, the lie that there is no hope. He would love for us to forget the last stanza of Clare’s poem. He’d love for us to say, “I am just a worm, nothing more.” He would love for us to sing those Lenten hymns without mention of that last stanza about the Easter victory.
That’s the temptation Satan puts before us. To throw all hope away. To join him in his defeated march. To give up on God completely. To give up and not stay around long enough to hear the conclusion. To leave the church today and not come back on Easter morning.
However, when we read Clare’s poem, when we read Psalm 22, when we are reminded of the hope that we do have, it pulls us out of that downward spiral. Satan has been tripped up. Today looks like the end of hope, the end of salvation, the death of our God, but there’s still another stanza to go, there’s still a new morning coming on Sunday, there is victory over death. Even in this moment of darkness and sadness and death and despair, there is hope: Christ will rise again.
John Clare’s poem may look like the last poem we should read today when we’re so aware of our sinfulness and separation from God, it’ll just drag us down, but it does exactly what we need: it voices our feelings and it reminds us of our hope of eternal life.
I am—yet what I am, none cares or knows;
I long for scenes where man hath never trod,
A place where woman never smiled or wept—
There to abide with my Creator God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept,
Untroubling, and untroubled where I lie,
The grass below—above, the vaulted sky.
Psalm 22 may look like the last psalm that Jesus should be speaking from the cross, it’ll just drag Him down, but it does exactly what Christ needed and it does exactly what we need when we look at the Good Friday scene: it voices our feelings and it reminds us of our hope.
My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?
Why are You so far from saving me,
So far from the words of my groaning?
Yet you brought me out of the womb;
From my mother’s womb You have been my God.
Do not be far from me,
For trouble is near.
As you look at the cross today, as you see the cost of your sinfulness, as you see how much separates us from God, Psalm 22 voices those feelings and then it also reminds you of the hope. God reminds us through His Word that He gave us life, He has been our God since we were in the womb, He will not be far off, He will be our strength, He will come quickly to help us when trouble is near, He will come to take us to the vaulted sky where we will untroubled lie.
Yes, today we may feel as if no one truly cares about us, but read the rest of John Clare’s poem and trust that you will abide with your Creator God. Yes, today we know the cry of Christ, “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” but read the rest of Psalm 22 and trust that God will not be far off in the day of trouble. Yes, today we sing the hymn, “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross,” but sing also the last stanza, “Love so amazing, so divine.” Yes, today we say, “I am a worm,” but indeed, we also say, “I am a worm who trusts in God.”