“Can It Be?”

“46 About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “Elí, Elí, lemá sabachtháni?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Matthew 27:46

The season of Lent, between Wednesday 05 March and Thursday 17 April, is a time to meditate upon the rescue plan of GOD — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — with both gravity, and gladness. Each year I’ve found that Scripture, books, and poetry are all quite helpful in this regard.

Today, a poem of adoration for our Messiah, and King, Jesus, from John Ellerton —

Throned upon the awful tree,
King of grief, I watch with thee.
Darkness veils thine anguished face:
none its lines of woe can trace:
none can tell what pangs unknown
hold thee silent and alone.

Silent through those three dread hours,
wrestling with the evil powers,
left alone with human sin,
gloom around thee and within,
till the appointed time is nigh,
till the Lamb of God may die.

Hark, that cry that peals aloud
upward through the whelming cloud!
Thou, the Father's only Son,
thou, his own Anointed One,
thou dost ask him — can it be?
“Why hast thou forsaken me?”

Lord, should fear and anguish roll
darkly o'er my sinful soul,
thou, who once was thus bereft
that thine own might ne'er be left,
teach me by that bitter cry
in the gloom to know thee nigh.