High Noon- Do Not Forsake Me

 

Day 8) Psalm 22:1,2; Matthew 27:45 “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” 
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.

Thoughts: Jesus quoted much from the Old Testament in the midst of His trail and crucifixion.  Christ quoted from David who was crying out to God for help, but there was no answer.  There are times when the “Dark Night of the Soul” comes upon us.  It appears God has deserted us.  Some at this point, desert God.  But as in David’s case and Jesus’ case, God did not truly leave.  Instead He came at the proper time and lifted David back up, and raised Christ from the dead.  He is able to lift us up as well. 
    Yet this time of God-forsakenness is like going through the valley of the shadow of death.  There is hopelessness all around.  Even God seems to have left.
     One of my favorite movies of all time is a black and white western called “High Noon.”  The theme song is “Do not forsake me O My Darlin.”  The story is of a sheriff who gets married and finds out his sworn enemy has been released from prison and his gang is coming to kill him and take back over the town.  His wife leaves.  The whole town leaves.  His assistants leave.  He has to face this terrible gang by himself.  In the end people come back in time to help him.  But he has to get the courage to “wait alone.”  We too must have courage to face our isolation and trials. 
     Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and Dwight Eisenhower saw this as one of their favorite films because of his Will Kane's (played by Gary Cooper) willingness as a marshal to stand up for what is right even if he were all alone.   The old saying goes God +1 makes the greatest majority.  If you feel you are the only one left standing up for what is right and that all have seemingly deserted you, take courage.  

High Noon- with Gary Cooper all alone and seemingly deserted (1952)

Loneliness is Not Good

 Day 4) Genesis 2:18- “It is not good for the man to be alone.”  This isn’t good.

     So God created the world, the lights, the seas, the earth, the plants and animals and man- after each one He says, “And God saw that it was good.”  Now God says for the first time “It is not good…for man to be alone.”  We are made to be with other people.  There have been hermits over the years, but it is not the same.    

     God made us to love other people.  Not just in marriage, but in friendship and fellowship.  Being in isolation is a temporary state we undergo out of love for others- that they might not get what we have.  So, yes, you are loving others when you are isolated to keep others safe.
    Isolation has often been used (historically) as a form of punishment in prisons.  Some now are considering this inhumane torture.  Most suicides in prison occur in isolation.  Mentally ill or stressed prisoners are especially effected. It is not good for us to be alone.  We can sympathize when we are in quarantine or isolation.  Many health-workers have self-isolated themselves from their family and friends away from their clinics/hospitals out of concern for them.  This adds to mental fatigue.

    John Donne was a British pastor/cleric who lived in the late 1500s- 1600s when the Great Bubonic Plague was still sweeping Europe, killing half the population.  He had a fear of being isolated, a fear of solitude at the height of the plague.  He said that this fear of loneliness was, “a disease of the mind at the height of the infectious disease of the body.”  He wrote these majestic words, “No man is an island, entire of himself; every man is a piece of a continent, a part of the main.”  Isolation hurts.  We know that.  I am simply “naming the demon.”  There were in the mid-early church hermits who went out to the desert to be alone with God.  Being around other people is also hard.  People can be more messy (or more neat) than we want.  People can rub us the wrong way with being too know-it-all or too simple.  People can be overly mean or doormats to others.  But the commandment to “love your neighbor” hinges on the idea “it is not good for the man to be alone.”  Love calls us to overcome pride, selfishness, and differences to get outside of ourselves for the other’s good- our own good- and the good of all- and the glory of God. 

Prayer: Lord, being alone hurts.

 

(John Delgado who works for a food bank isolated himself from his family
as mother, wife, and child were susceptible to Covid19 issues.  Miami Herald 4/3/20)