MISSING GOD

Dr. Richard J. Henderson February 22, 2004

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Mark 15: 33-39
Job 23: 1-9
Psalm 13 (responsive reading)

Introduction

Have you had a time in your life when you felt God was missing? Almost everyone has. Sometimes that horrible feeling comes at the most difficult times. We are hurting, suffering the loss of one we love, or facing awful times - right when we need God most, we feel like God is absent from our lives. The Bible is very aware of this experience. Most of the Bible treats God's absence as something we have experienced and a normal part of life and our relationship with God.

Many of the Psalms - like Psalm 13 - speak about the absence of God. "How long, O Lord, will you forget me forever?" Job, in the midst of his life falling apart, offers us his graphic image of God's absence:

"If I go forward, he is not there
Or backward, I cannot perceive him
On the left he hides, and I cannot behold him
I turn to the right, but I cannot see him."

Have you ever been there?

Jesus, dying a miserable death on the cross, cries out to heaven, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He is quoting Psalm 22. Feeling this absence of God is not something to be ashamed of, it is not a failure of faith, unless you think Christ had a failure of faith as he was dying on the cross. It's part of being in a relationship with God - actually, it's part of being in relationship with anyone.

We sense different ways in which we miss God. There are different reasons why God doesn't seem to be present. Some of these reasons we can understand. Some are mysteries beyond us - because God is a mystery beyond us.

I

Sometimes we miss God because we misunderstand God. There are times in our lives when we don't sense God because we're looking in the wrong places. Sometimes we miss God because our faith is immature.

I remember the first time I doubted God's existence and power. I was very young, and a friend and I were playing around a new church that was being built. We decided to pray for rain. (It was mostly to test God - see if God would/could respond to our requests). So we stood there among the poured concrete and piles of dirt and prayed a little prayer for rain. Then we waited. Nothing. We waited some more. Still nothing. In that moment it occurred to me that there might not be a God.

That experience is, of course, childish. My understanding of God was very immature. Last week I heard an author on the radio talking about a turning point in his faith. In this experience he questioned the existence of God. He was an Orthodox Jew, raised in a strict family. He followed all the rules, laws, and customs of his faith. He was taught never to drive or ride in a car on the Sabbath.

One day he faced a real crisis. He lives just outside New York City and on this Saturday his hockey team was playing in the playoffs in Madison Square Garden. His faith told him not to drive or ride to the playoffs, but he had tickets to see the game, and the stadium was 14 miles away. He and his wife talked about it, and decided to walk to Madison Square Gardens. They had plenty of time so they walked from their home, across the bridge, and through town to the game.

They got there, found their seats, and watched the game. Their team lost. He just couldn't believe it!! The man was devastated. He was angry with God. "I walked all this way to keep your rules, and you let them lose!" He seriously talked as if God should have given his team the victory because he had made such an effort.

It was a call-in talk show, and I was surprised that no one called in to say, "Do you think maybe you're taking hockey a bit too seriously?" or, "Might it be that your image of God is a little immature?" I didn't really expect anyone to say, "You seem to have the customs, rules and regulations of your faith down, but a strong theological understanding of God seems to be lacking."

I felt embarrassed for him, going on the radio to say, "I became an agnostic because God didn't make my hockey team win, when I went to all the trouble to walk fourteen miles to see that game."

He felt the absence of God, when he had no right to expect God's action. God didn't give him what he wanted so he decided to leave God. Sometimes we think God is absent because we don't have a mature understanding of God.

II

Sometimes we feel the absence of God in a way that makes God even more real. That sounds contradictory doesn't it? God's absence makes God more present? Think of this: we can only feel the absence of something that we know well. We can't miss something we've never known. A person blind from birth doesn't miss seeing trees she's never seen. We only feel the absence of something we have experienced.

When we go away for any length of time we leave our dog, Rocksie, with our son, Jon. After we get back, and before we go to get Rocksie, we have some experiences of missing her. For example, we pull into the garage, open the door into the family room, and expect Rocksie to come bounding across the room with her tail wagging, to jump up on us, and to welcome us home. When she's still at Jon's, we come in the house anticipating that welcome, but there is no one there. We really miss her in that moment. Her absence reminds us of how important she is to us.

We miss what we know and love. The more we have loved, the more we feel that absence. The reality of the one you love is felt when you are out of town lying in a huge bed all alone. It is the arm stretched across the sheet that reaches no one. It is walking into your child's room after they've gone - seeing it empty and silent and remembering.

We had the opportunity to walk through the first house we ever owned, the house we moved out of twenty-three years ago. As we walked through the house I saw things I had completely forgotten about. I stood at the workbench in the basement and remembered cuts I had made in the table and projects I had worked on. We went upstairs and remembered the time our daughter, Jennifer locked herself in the bathroom and we had to call the police to get her out. We stepped into the back yard and remembered the time Jon left the hose on all night and flooded the whole backyard. It brought back wonderful memories. We missed those days when the kids were young.

Sometimes absence makes the reality of what we love even greater. In the same way, the absence of God - our feeling that God is not there - can make the reality of God even more real. The absence of God can be a reminder of the importance of God in our lives.

III

Since you've followed me this far, I want to take you one step further. The one absent can be present in us. The one we miss can be made real through us. You and I are able to see with the eyes of the one we miss.

The best explanation of this I have read is from the great preacher, Barbara Brown Taylor 1. I want to quote directly from her, because she says it so well. "Feeling the absence of others, we can see with their eyes. When we miss someone, we can help him be present by acting on their behalf; by acting in the way they would."

I think especially of the people who have lost a son or daughter, a spouse or close friend, and in response to that loss have taken on the concerns of the one they miss.

For example, a family's son was a budding artist. He loved to draw and paint. Some of his artwork had been shown in exhibits. He was working at a day job, but his real love was for his art. Then one day he was killed in a car accident.

When they got through the worst of their grief, his parents took on his love as their passion. Where once they had been stuck in their daily routine, his parents now came alive in their enthusiasm for art and young artists. They set up a scholarship at the university where their son had graduated, they lobbied for more art programs in the public schools at all levels, and they sponsored an annual art show of young, unknown artists. Their son was present in the work they did.

In a similar way, when we are missing God, we can help God be real by living and acting as God has shown us. The reality of God can be made real through our actions.

Conclusion

You aren't going to miss what you've never known. You won't feel the absence of something you didn't believe was real. When you come to a time when God seems to be absent in your life, it can actually be an affirmation of God for you.

There is hope even in those times when we long to feel God's presence. We can also help God be present by living our lives the way God's son showed us to. The reality of God can be present through the actions of God's people, even in the times when we aren't feeling God with us.

Amen.

1. Taylor, Barbara Brown, Gospel Medicine, Boston, Cowley Publications, 1995. P75-76

©Richard J. Henderson 2004