We Are Not Forgotten
And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
Matthew 27:24, New Testament, The Bible
I happened upon a short article in which Billy Crystal, the American actor, confessed that he had stopped talking to God in the aftermath of the heart-breaking losses he had experienced in 2025. Not only personal losses, but also the turmoil in which our world finds itself. These have caused him to lose his trust in God (1). He is not the first, and certainly will not be the last person, who, after suffering great tragedy and loss, will feel that God has let them down and find that trust in Him is difficult. It is a difficult circle to square – how is it that, a supremely powerful God who, it is claimed, loves those who are faithful to Him, can allow such tragedy to befall them? Surely this means that God is either not supremely powerful, or that, in fact, He does not love those who are faithful? This is an age-old question to which many great minds and hearts have devoted great writings, not least in the Bible itself (eg. The Book of Job).
Billy Crystal is a Jew whereas I am a Christian and we would perhaps not share quite the same perspective on this matter, but the fact of suffering – great and small – is common to all humanity. There are times when we cannot fool ourselves any more and have to confess that we are angry, very angry at this God. Faith and trust no longer seem possible and we turn our faces away. For some of us this is a brief passage, for others it endures much longer. I think that both Jewish and Christian perspectives would nonetheless acknowledge that though I turn my face away, He does not. Though I may forget Him, He does not forget me. He is, indeed, faithful to a thousand generations (2) even if I am unable to see it.
It is a matter of faith that God is supremely powerful and indeed holds all things in His hands (I was once in a discussion as a teenager, and a girl who was present, more perceptive than most of us, said “If that’s true, then it’s terrifying!”). It is equally a matter of faith that He loves us. But, as a Christian, I would also say that God has demonstrated that He understands human pain and tragedy because He has experienced it Himself. I am able to say that He knows personally what it means to lose a child in the most tragic of circumstances because that is what happened when Jesus Christ was crucified – a politically and prejudicially motivated execution cynically brought about by religious authorities who claimed to be doing God’s work. He stands with every mother and every father who has watched their child suffer and die because He has been there – it is not just theory.
From the other side, He also knows what it feels like to be abandoned by God. One of the great triumphs of the doctrine of the Trinity, is that the divine has become human, and becoming human God Himself cries out, as the Son dying on a cross, the heart wrenching words of abandonment cited above. Jesus hung on the cross, death closed in, He was abandoned. God knows what it is like to feel abandoned by God.
Billy Crystal has stopped talking to God because of the tragedies he has suffered. God knows what that feels like and He will be there when Billy Crystal feels able to start talking to Him again – however long that might be.
- https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/billy-crystal-god-rob-reiner-death-b3065460.html acc. 23.10.2066 15:38
- Deuteronomy 7:9 Old Testament, The Bible.
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