God-forsaken

Dr. Crosby,

I went to a talk recently on faith and doubt. One thing mentioned, quoting John Ortberg, was that Jesus doubted God on the cross when he asked, "Why have you forsaken me?" The speaker thought Jesus may have doubted God's plan without doubting his existence. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about Jesus' faith while on the cross.
Sincerely, *********



What a good question! Jesus quoted Psalm 22:1 when he spoke these words. It is a psalm of David about the suffering of the righteous. David was lamenting that his enemies had not been defeated. He felt like God wasn’t helping him.

Psalm 22 is quoted in the New Testament more than any other psalm. In particular it is applied to the crucifixion. If you read Psalm 22:7-8, you see the foreshadowing of Jesus on the cross. Verses 14-15 and 17-18 describe details about Jesus in his death. In verse 24 the psalm declares that God has not hidden his face after all.

I think Jesus was experiencing the penalty of sin when he spoke these words. He died in our place, and our place is a terribly dark place. Paul describes our lostness as being “without God in the world” (Ephesians 2:12). Jesus experienced the absence of fellowship with his Father on the cross. That is what I believe. Since I also believe in the progressive understanding of Jesus about his own person and mission (e.g. Luke 2:52), being forsaken by his Father could have been a surprise to Jesus on the cross. But my own opinion is that Jesus knew fully what he was getting into, that this was the “cup” which he prayed in Gethsemane would “pass from me” (Mark 14:36). He quoted Psalm 22:1 on purpose because it expressed his own brokenness in bearing our sin and it referenced the psalm which described best the event he was going through.

I think there were times that Jesus was tempted to abandon the path his Father gave him, not just in the wilderness with Satan but also along the way with the stubborn unbelief of his disciples, the blindness of Israel’s leaders, and the terrible price he was called upon to pay. We all wonder sometimes why he didn’t come down from the cross or abandon the path of suffering and just nuke ‘em.

Jesus experienced being forsaken by the Father. Did he doubt in that moment the effectiveness of the Father’s plan? Maybe. Was he helping us understand the terrible consequence of sin? Surely.

These words of Jesus from the cross may stand in line with his prayer in Gethsemane: “If it is possible, let this cup pass from me.” I don’t understand all that Jesus knew and felt in those hours before his crucifixion. But his prayer indicates that he was hoping for or looking for a way out. Yet he was completely obedient to the Father’s will, and he walked the path that was most difficult.

When we feel that God isn’t “there for us,” when it seems that we are going alone through our trouble, we question his love and sometimes we question his existence. Doubt is a frequent intruder both in our faith and in the atheist’s unbelief. We may be attacked by doubt at times. But so also are those who deny God’s love and/or existence. Some people simply become agnostic—“no knowledge,” insisting that we cannot know. Unfortunately, the agnostic builds his life the same way the atheist does. Agnostics never live as if God does exist and they will give an account to him one day. Instead, they order their lives as if God does not exist. They simply ignore him. I think that atheism and agnosticism are pretty much the same thing in the end.

The way of faith, believing in the God we cannot see with our eyes, is not without its intellectual supports and powerful arguments. But in the end it is FAITH which we exercise. Rarely Jesus saw GREAT faith in people. He encouraged his disciples by telling them that even a “little” faith could move mountains. We are often like the fellow who said, “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief! (Mark 9:24).

Faith is not sight. Faith is not completely a leap into the unknown, but it is in part such a leap. Doubt is often the unwanted but persistent companion of faith. None of us are strangers to doubt. As long as we are in this world not a single one of us has absolute certainty about all that we believe or confess including atheists and saints and everyone in between.

Jesus lived and died as a human being in this world. I am comforted by his question on the cross. It helps me when I feel abandoned by God. As it turns out, the times that I have felt God-forsaken my feelings were actually mistaken. In retrospect I can see God’s hand at work in my life even in its most painful moments. Ultimately Jesus’ fellowship with his Father was fully restored and his descent into the darkness, which accomplished our salvation, was followed by his ascent into the Father’s presence.

FINISH STRONG

I have received many testimonies of God’s grace and provision through these last weeks of fasting, prayer, and giving.

Teresa Bovia lost her son, U.S. Marine Sergeant Joseph Bovia, on the battlefield in Afghanistan August 29. She writes:

The phrase "walking with Jesus" has a new meaning during this time in our life. However, I will also tell you that without Jesus I wouldn't be standing much less walking. As I look back over the events of the last days I see God's hand woven through each and every part of our loss. I would not begin to tell you we are through with our grief or that the tragedy is over, but what God is doing is drawing us each closer to him as we move through the grieving process.

Billy Benson writes the story of God’s grace in his marriage:

This certain young lady would later on pray for me as I went on a six week trip to the Middle East, and even adjust her schedule to be awake at the times I was awake. When I got back from the trip with a huge picture of God's love for all nations, God began to bring us together and we courted and were engaged for four months before getting married.

Cimbrey Brannan tells a part of their story:

When Mark and I began considering adoption, it was very evident to both of us that if God was leading us to begin the process, He would have to come through for us financially. Inter-country adoption is between $25,000 and $50,000, and that figure seemed impossible for two young married adults. Moreover, we were convinced that if God was calling us to adopt, He wanted us to do so in a fiscally responsible way.

Cimbrey recounts God’s provision through unanticipated pay raises, bonuses, and awards.

I was amazed that God was clearly providing for the adoption payments we would have to make this year. All the while, Mark and I have been able to give our monthly tithe to First Baptist New Orleans. God has given over and beyond what we could imagine.

We have only one Sunday left in our praying, fasting, and giving emphasis. Our offerings have been amazing, but we still have a ways to go. Let’s all participate to some degree, and we will see God’s provision for all our ministry needs.

Loving Muslims

Religious liberty is falling on hard times around the world. This includes many countries dominated by Islamic majorities. True religious freedom includes freedom of assembly, speech, and the press and a guarantee of equal respect and treatment under the law. This is the only peaceful way forward in a world as small as ours.

The model for such religious liberty is right here in these United States where our Congress “shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” (First Amendment, U.S. Constitution). This is a guarantee that all religions will be treated equally before the law.

I include the content and meaning of the First Amendment when I speak to Muslims at home and abroad. The Bible teaches that true faith in God cannot be coerced, that God seeks a free response of love from those he freely loves, that all individuals on the planet are made in God’s image. This is the religious seedbed out of which the First Amendment emerged.

The first Baptist pastor in America, Roger Williams, founded Rhode Island and invited Muslims to settle there without fear of reprisal. He also guaranteed all residents of Rhode Island that there would be no religious test for holding public office.

Building a mosque near the site of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks may be foolish and ill-advised, but the demands of religious liberty require that our government officials step aside.

Government cannot block the building of this mosque without communicating to the world that we believe Islam was the true source of the terrorist attacks and that it is out of favor in these United States. Such a message sent by our government violates our First Amendment guarantee of freedom of religion and negates its positive impact around the world. It polarizes Islam and Christianity on the world stage and reinforces the idea that our governments are involved in a “holy war.”

Some Christians believe that Christianity and Islam are squared off in the Middle East, Africa, and here at home. As a follower of Jesus I find no basis for taking up the sword against another religion. Nor do I believe that faithfulness to Christ requires fighting for world domination.

I find no grounds in the teachings of Jesus for the mobilization of military troops on behalf of the gospel. Quite the opposite, I hear Jesus calling me to pour out my life for the sake of the gospel.

If called upon I would fight and die to preserve this freedom which is ours as Americans, including freedom of religion. Since Christ must be followed from the heart I am not prepared to force anyone to deny their conscience or force them to espouse Christianity.

America is having a conversation about Islam and Muslims in our midst. What is the Christian point of view? We are to love Muslims as our neighbors. We are to care for them in their needs. We are to make room for those who are strangers among us.

Love prompts us to look for the good and the best in others. I believe that Christians can find much common ground with their Muslim neighbors. Since we are commanded to live in peace with all men these areas of common interest could be the focus of our discussion with Muslims rather than troubling texts or groups who express their faith with violence.

We are called to love our God completely and our neighbor as ourselves. Our commitment is to love Muslims—to work for their good, both here and around the world.

A billion Muslims are listening to this American dialogue about Islam. Many of them live in oppression and poverty. They can scarcely envision such a place as free and just as America given what they see and experience from their rulers and competing brands of their religion. They are wondering if the American dream is really true, if America is still the land of the free and the home of the brave.

We must send the message of liberty for all. We must fly the flag of true religious freedom. We must not reinforce the perception that Christians oppose Muslims and are seeking to overthrow them. Rather, consistent with the call of Christ, we must sound the trumpets of love and liberty. These notes, more powerful than guns and bombs, will be heard around the world by the oppressed and the downcast and will plant the seeds of the fruit we truly seek—peace among and within the peoples of this tiny planet.

Protect and Serve

Herbert Bovia was wearing the blue uniform of the New Orleans Police Department when he arrived at his home in Kenner to receive the death message about his oldest son, Joseph, a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps felled by sniper fire Tuesday, August 31, in Afghanistan.

Teresa, Herbie’s wife, was home alone when three uniformed Marines knocked on her door: a chaplain, a captain, and a sergeant. They delivered the message every parent of soldiers in combat fears to hear and stayed with her until her husband and friends arrived to weep and console.

Herbie, a 30-year veteran of the NOPD, was a towering presence in the room. His hands trembled as he read a line from Joey’s handwritten letter that arrived the Monday before he died. In it Joey was wondering why he had volunteered for a third tour in Afghanistan. “Nonetheless,” he wrote, “I am at peace.” He spoke of the new recruits he was training for their dangerous mission and observed that they were “getting it”—the urgency and nobility of their work.

All his life this outstanding marine, 24 years old, had watched his father proudly don the police uniform and depart his home to put himself in harm’s way on behalf of others. Joey learned well the meaning of “serve and protect.”

Joey volunteered to help disarm roadside bombs in Afghanistan. When the unit he led and trained hit the field, he insisted on taking point. They were waiting on the bomb squad when Taliban fighters ambushed them.

The Bovias left with military escorts to receive the body of their son in Dover, Delaware. Joey was dressed in Dover and brought home for burial. More than 2,000 persons filed by to greet family members and to pay their respects to this fallen American hero. The solemn procession from First Baptist New Orleans to Garden of Memories cemetery traveled the streets escorted by officers of the NOPD and other law enforcement agencies who blocked all traffic even on the interstate.

Joey’s body was laid to rest with the calm assurance and confident faith that Joey himself was with the Lord Jesus in the Father’s House, just as Jesus promised. Joey trusted Christ at an early age and was a man of faith and prayer, courage and determination.

We owe an enormous debt of gratitude to the Bovia family both as a community and a country. Herbie has given his adult life to protect and serve our city, and now he and Teresa have given their oldest son in service to his country.

Jesus said, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13). That is what U.S. Marine Sergeant Joseph Anthony Bovia did on August 31, 2010, on a battlefield in Afghanistan. He laid down his life for his friends.

New Orleans' Snaggletooth Smile

Five years after Hurricane Katrina socked us and soaked us, we are tired, but we still sport that snaggletooth smile. We have hope and faith and dark circles under our eyes.

Our smile reflects a true hospitality and a determined hope for our future. Nobody knows the trouble we’ve seen. But how could they? They come to see our parades and ballgames, not our soup kitchens and crime scenes.

The past five years are a blur. We worked liked Trojans, lived one day at a time, and crammed eternity into the blink of an eye. Who knew five years was over—or would ever pass? We slogged through a Katrina time warp when all the clocks drowned. Like the kid in the backseat, I am perpetually wondering, “Are we there yet?”

Truthfully, we have not emerged from our submerged world no matter how much we long to be rid of it. Those sickening brine lines—marking the height of the flood and the depth of our misery—are still tattooed on fences, pillars, buildings, and on our souls. What simply could not happen did, slicing a horizontal reminder through everything we know. My vision may be better or worse, but the world looks different from here.

I have passed from feeling condemned to feeling confused to feeling useful to feeling hopeful. But I am ever one step away from the murk of disturbing memories. Honestly, my mind resists going back to Hurricane Katrina and the immediate aftermath. As time goes by the details fade but the overall impression of the great flood is sobering and painful.

Today hundreds of construction cranes cast their shadows on our half-recovered landscape, and they are towers of hope. Going east, those Twin Spans across Lake Pontchartrain are an engineering marvel, almost completed. New ramps and fly-overs are taking shape at the interchange of Interstate 10 and Causeway Boulevard. The Huey P. Long Bridge is bulging with giant new biceps for wider lanes.

Our most interesting bridge, the Danziger, once the largest vertical-lift bridge in the world, has become a symbol for police brutality and corruption. We are horrified and heartbroken by these revelations. Rampant lawlessness in our streets is certainly related to any disregard for the law among our police, in our courts, and in our culture.

The drive from the Industrial Canal east to Interstate 510 remains a disturbing and depressing journey. We cannot get comfortable with our current reality in the footprint of the flood.

People are generally optimistic, I find, but also frustrated at the slow progress in some areas. Unattended infrastructure problems detract from the work we have accomplished in our homes and neighborhoods. The astonishing levels of murder and mayhem cause widespread anxiety and confusion about the safety and stability of our city.

The faith community is vibrant and deeply involved and invested in the city’s restoration. We leapt up after the storm, addressed the immediate needs, and helped clean up the mess. Collectively, we deployed a million volunteers. We continue the work of rebuilding our city. The flood washed us out of our pews and into our streets. Thousands of congregations here and elsewhere have found renewed purpose and joy in the hard work of serving people in need. This may prove to be a permanent course correction for many households of faith.

Vast resources have been expended through our churches and affiliated nonprofits, as with all sectors of our community. We are delighted to see progress in housing, education, health care, and flood protection and eager to enjoy and highlight these permanent improvements to life in New Orleans.

We remember those who perished in the great flood. We acknowledge the historical significance of Katrina in our personal and collective lives. We embrace and assimilate the lessons we learned in our time of trouble. And we renew our resolve to fashion a more peaceful and prosperous future for the city that we love.

The Chief and the Immam

We went to see the Chief today. He is a man of power and influence in the Songhai community here, and we should not try to do our work without his knowledge.

We missed him by ten minutes, but his brother was there. We talked to him and told him about our hope of returning to conduct medical clinics and educational programs. The brother was enthusiastic about our goals and said they would cooperate in notifying the people.

The immam who advises the Chief arrived as we were talking in the Chief's office. He, too, seemed supportive and eager to help.

We talked for 15 minutes and left with the impression that the Songhai community would readily receive medical and educational assistance. Their are no medical clinics operating among them, as far as we know, and the teaching of English is almost exclusively governmental.

Team members were entertaining school children when we returned to the school which was our meeting place. Denise was telling Bible stories. Yvette was helping an autistic young man and his family. Anna was visiting with a young mother and her child, asking about hair-braiding and how long it takes.

Chad, an intern from Tennessee, was trying to mimmick me, he said, by falling asleep on a bench. My clock never quite adjusted, so I perfected the art of cat-napping anywhere, anytime, but not without a lot of jealousy and protest from other team members. Any pictures or stories you may encounter about this are likely borne of frustration and ill humor.

Sim had gotten on the concrete floor with the children and was in need of help to rise. Adam was just taking it all in. And Fourcows (aka Kristen) was insisting that her father had raised the price on her dowry, putting it out of range of almost all prospects.

We are approaching dinner time here when we will enjoy a feast prepared by Adeline. She cooks American dishes and nails them every time.

At 9 p.m. we will leave for the airport and a endure long process of checking bags and going through customs. Flights leave in succession around midnight, and the lines are long. Our flight leaves at 1 a.m. Saturday morning. We hope to be home by noon.

Our team is tired, but we are happy. We have had a marvelous experience in Africa. All of us want to return. The Songhai people have captured our hearts, and we are eager to follow up with more teaching, more learning, and more opportunities to incarnate the love of Christ.

Timber Market Madness

Two girls about 12 years of age stopped to gaze at a mob scene in the Timber Market in Jamestown. Sim was in the middle of a jostling crowd with fifty outstretched hands. He was the only one who would own up to having any CDs left to give out, and people were loudly demanding that he give them one.

I was on the periphery enjoying the view because, as I told them, "I am finished." That is, I have no more CDs. The two girls stood before me, one with fifty bags of water balanced in a bowl on her head and the other balancing a bowl of food but without any cloth beneath the bowl. It seemed to roll around on her head as she talked, and she was skilled enough to keep it centered.

They asked politely in English what was going on, and they wanted audio CDs, these two girls. I suspected they might not be Songhai, and the CDs were in the Zarma language. I had heard many times this week, "I cannot hear Zarma." These amazing people are all tri-lingual, but Zarma is not widely spoken.

"Are you Songhai?" I asked them, and they said yes. But I was suspicious. Here in the Timber Market people were now claiming to be Songhai so they could get a free CD.

"Mate gum," I said to them, a traditional Zarma greeting (or close). They went wide-eyed and dissolved into giggles without upsetting the balance of their burdens. I realized then that they were indeed Songhai and that this was very likely the first time in their lives they had heard a white man speak Zarma. I am one of only a very few white guys on the planet that can greet someone in Zarma (more or less).

I became one of the 50 demanding CDs from Sim who delivered some of the last two to the girls. We hurried out of the market lest we cause an even bigger scene. Everywhere the Songhai people walked carrying CDs others wanted to know what they had in their hand and where they got it. Hence, the discreet and private conveyance of the initial CDs to a small, select group of men that Gomer, the missionary, already knew turned into people hurrying down the dusty roads between long racks of rough lumber looking for white people bearing gifts.

After eight days, we're still learning how to do this properly.

Earlier, one veteran laborer in the vast Timber Market in the Jamestown area of Accra had estimated for us that 1,000 Songhai work there. I think they all tried to get their hands in Sim's backpack.

Even Muslim men wearing long shiny robes and round caps and toting prayer beads wanted CDs. They could have been--and probably were--suspicious of these white Christians. But they were also curious, I am sure, about the contents of a CD about Jesus.

I longed to snap some pictures, but my camera stayed in the backpack until I saw a king-size wooden bed sitting in the middle of the road between the lumber racks. Following the lead of one of the Songhai who thought his wife might be interested in the bed and took photos with his cell phone, I whipped out my camera and caught the bed and its craftsman with hundreds of boards in the background. The Timber Market may be the size of eight or ten city blocks. The scale of African life is way to wide and deep and high to capture in a photo or a film. All of my senses are under continual overload everywhere I go.

The poorest residents of Accra live in the Jamestown area, the center of which is James Fort Prison. It is an ancient structure on the seashore where slaves were held before their transport across the Atlantic. Ghana was one of the favored areas for slave traders. What a sad and tragic part of Africa's history--and the history of the world.

Some of our team members have taken African names like Freckles, Peppers, and Fran. Our youngest member, Kristen, is now "Fourcows." We should have her officially engaged before the end of the day. Suitors are everywhere.

Suitcases are bouncing down the terrazzo staircase. People from all over the world come and go at the Baptist guest house with dizzying rapidity. My coffee needs refreshed as the world wakes up, and my last day in Africa (this trip) opens before me.