How to Pray in the Dark

Some context: As many victims and observers wrestle with the results and implications of yesterday’s storms near OKC, we can turn to Jesus for help.  Jesus models how to pray honestly and hopefully in the midst of despair. This post is from a book exploring the ways Jesus prayed in times of darkness.

 

Crying for Help in a Hole

When I was in Kindergarten, Charlotte Griffin’s ranch made the ideal location for our field trip.  About twenty five-and-six-year-olds were scampering among the goats, the hens, and the hay like crazed ants.  After a long morning, we were hot, dusty, and grinning from ear to ear.  Our teachers and chaperones signaled for us to get back on our bus, but I was in the barn climbing on the stacked bales of hay.  I was at the top and turned to join my friends scurrying to the bus.  Suddenly I stepped out into air where hay should have been.  The bales had not been pushed together when stacked.  And my feet had found one of those places where the spaces in between were just large enough to swallow a little boy.

Freefall.  A blur of light.  Then darkness.  Suddenly I found myself upside down in a hole—head at the bottom, feet lodged at the top.

“Help!” I screamed.  “Help!”

My screams went unanswered.  Every friend and adult had already left the barn.  They were upright and comfortable in the sunny bus while I was hanging uncomfortably in the frightening darkness of a hole in the hay.

My screams grew higher and more frantic.  They left me!  They forgot me!  They deserted me!

But just when the fear was more than my five-year-old heart could handle, I felt a strong hand on my foot.  I began to float upward, toward the top of the hole.  As the darkness faded and the light grew, I could make out a dirty cowboy boot, then jeans, then a belt buckle, then a plaid shirt, then a wide-mouthed grin on the face of the man who had just rescued me.

I couldn’t believe it!  Rescued!  I was so relieved to be out of that hole.

There’s nothing worse than being deserted.  There’s nothing better than being delivered.

But what happens when no rescue is in sight?  What happens when the prospect of deliverance remains distant?

As I was working on this chapter a close friend of mine was tending to her young husband in the hospital when she learned that he had been having an affair.  When confronted, the husband didn’t hesitate to produce a confession—he told his wife that he wanted out of the marriage immediately.  She has three young children and no job.  I caught her on the phone as she was limping to her mother’s house for refuge.  Abandoned.  Rejected.  And no likelihood of reunion.

There’s nothing worse than being deserted.  There’s nothing better than being delivered.  But what happens when it seems you’re stuck in that hole forever?

 

Forsaken

The Gospel of Mark provides an unforgettable image of just such a dark time:

 

And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.  And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  And some of the bystanders hearing it said, “Behold, he is calling Elijah.” And someone ran and filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to take him down.” And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.  And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, “Truly this man was the Son of God!” (Mk. 15:33-39 ESV).

 

There’s never been a hole deeper than Jesus’ hole.  There’s never been darkness thicker than Jesus’ darkness.  And there’s never been one so utterly alone as Jesus.

His loneliness is complete.  Jesus is deserted by his greatly esteemed pals.  Peter, James and John alone witnessed Jesus raising the dead daughter of Jairus.  Only this trio accompanied Jesus at his transfiguration.  Only these three received teaching about the end of the age on the Mount of Olives.  And these three men alone, though sleepy, kept company with Jesus as he wrestled in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane.  But on this day, Jesus is in the hole alone.  James, we must assume, has fled.  Peter, we know for certain, has rejected his master no less than three times.  John remains (Jn. 19:26).  The trio is reduced to a solo.

But Jesus is deserted by more than just his closest friends.  Craig S. Keener, author of a dozen books and professor of New Testament at Palmer Seminary, says the whole world abandoned Jesus at the cross.[i]  In Jesus’ day “the whole world” was comprised of two people-groups: Jews and Gentiles.  At the cross, we see Roman soldiers—that is, Gentiles—mocking and rejecting Jesus.  While they waste time before the crucifixion these Gentiles take a soldier’s cloak and place it on Jesus like a royal robe.  They take the bamboo cane, previously used for beating Jesus, and place it in his hands like a royal scepter.  They take a thorny plant and weave a crown of it.[ii]  Clearly the Gentiles reject Jesus.  And so do the Jews.  Jewish leaders conspire to trap Jesus.  Jewish rulers condemn Jesus.  Jewish crowds ridicule Jesus.  Both groups of people reject him.

Yet it’s not just these two ethnic groups who abandon Jesus.  It’s the elite and the marginalized as well.  Among Jews and Gentiles there was high society and low society.  Both ends of the class structure abandon Jesus.  We watch as men in the highest Roman and Jewish positions judge Jesus.  And we watch as a criminal dying on his own cross snaps at him too.

Jesus’ esteemed pals and the entire planet—Jew and Gentile; high and low—reject and abandon him.  There’s not a human left in the barn.  They’ve all gotten on the bus.

But it gets worse.

Because not only has every human deserted Jesus—so has every deity.  The absence of the other two members of the Holy Trinity to which Jesus belonged pains Jesus more than the abandonment of Peter, James and John.  Jesus feels forgotten by the Father.  He feels cast aside by the Spirit.  The Trinity is down to two.  Just as you have never known life without oxygen, blood, and bones, Jesus has never known life without the Trinity—except now, when he needs them the most.  That community is as vital to his life as air is to ours.  And as Jesus spiritually asphyxiates on the cross, he cries out, “Why have you forsaken me?”

Accepted.  Received.  Embraced.  These are the words that should be coming out of the mouth of God’s only Son.  These are the words that describe his daily life in the Trinity.  But not today.  Today he is forsaken.

It is a dark hole.  Mark records “And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.”  Three hours of darkness to accompany the loneliness and despair.  It is an appropriate image.  In the Bible, discouragement almost always seems paired with darkness.  For example, the authors of the Psalms use the word “pit” to describe those times when life is discouraging.  David writes “Let not the flood sweep over me, or the deep swallow me up, or the pit close its mouth over me (Ps. 69:15).”  Another psalmist states, “You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep (Ps. 88:6).”  This is the dark and deep pit in which Jesus is crucified.  Only darker.  Only deeper.  Deserted by friends.  Abandoned by the world.  Forsaken by the Father and the Spirit.

A few days ago the daughter of a friend emptied her medicine cabinet into her stomach.  She had endured three years of an abusive marriage which finally dissolved.  Then she fell in love with another man—only to discover that man was cheating on her.  At the bottom of that pit, so dark and so discouraging, her father told me she was angry at God.  Where had God been?  Why had he permitted such pain?

There’s nothing worse than being deserted.  Especially when it feels as if God himself is the first one out the door.

 

Praying in the Pit

And the question is this: How do you pray at the bottom of such a pit?  What do you say to a God with whom you’re not on speaking terms?  As I’ve been with people in dark times, it seems that many of us pray in one of two directions.

First, some of us pray irregularly.  The river of prayer dries up or is restricted to an occasional trickle.  We get so hurt, angry, and disappointed that we barely or rarely pray.  A friend of mine who is working through the grief of losing a loved one was at this point recently.  He told me that he hadn’t prayed in weeks.  He was so traumatized that he could not talk to God.  Sorrow becomes a stone which dams up all supplication.

Second, some of us pray dishonestly.  The river of prayer keeps flowing, but it’s forced. The pain inside is not permitted to show itself outside.  We pray about everything—except what is most on our mind.  In the morning we speak to God about our bowl of cereal, our day ahead, and that breaking news on the TV.  In the afternoon we speak to God about our coworker’s divorce or our classmate’s upcoming move.  In the evening we speak to God about our family and friends.  But the ache in our heart is like the elephant in the room.  We know it’s there.  More importantly God knows it’s there.  But we refuse to say anything about it.

How do you pray at the bottom of a pit?  What do you say to God when you’re not on speaking terms?

 

The Perfect Imperfect Prayer

Jesus shows us the way: “And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Mk. 15:34 ESV).   In Matthew and Mark these are the only words spoken by Jesus from the cross.  The only words from the cross which caught these chroniclers’ attention were these words.

If your last prayer was going to be permanently recorded, would you utter this prayer?  If I knew a journalist was going to write my final prayer, I’d try to make it positive and polished.  Something that might inspire others.  Something like the last words in the movie “Braveheart.”[iii]  The movie was based on the true story of William Wallace, a Scottish rebel who leads an uprising against an English ruler named Edward the Longshanks.  Wallace is captured and tortured before his public death.  He is made a spectacle.  Wallace tries to speak.  Those presiding over the torture urge the crowd to be silent.  It’s the darkest moment of Wallace’s life.  What will he say?  Wallace sums up the entire rebellion perfectly with his dying breath: “Freedom!”

It is the perfect last word.  It’s what I’d like to think I’d say or pray with my final breath.  And compared to this, what Jesus gives us sounds so imperfect: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  Yet his line turns out to be the perfect imperfect prayer.

It is perfect because of its honesty.  Jesus does not pretend the pain isn’t painful.  Jesus doesn’t make believe the darkness isn’t dark.  He doesn’t ignore what’s on his heart and go through a hollow prayer list.  Instead, Jesus prays with brutal honesty: “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”

This compelling candor characterizes Jesus throughout the crucifixion.  Matthew notes that “they offered him wine to drink, mixed with gall, but when he tasted it, he would not drink it” (Matt. 27:34 ESV).  The drink offered here is probably wine laced with a kind of narcotic designed to numb the pain of the cross.  An ancient Jewish book called the Talmud tells of women in Jerusalem who provided condemned criminals a drink of wine mixed with narcotic to deaden their senses.[iv]    Jesus, however, closes his lips to the offer.  He does not blunt the burden.  His senses remain sharp.  He drinks deeply of the pain of the cross.

In the same way, Jesus’ prayer does not detour around the darkness.  Instead, the prayer drives straight into its heart: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

This prayer was perfected long before Jesus speaks it.  Its original supplicant is the Old Testament hero David who writes down these lines in Psalm 22.  Jesus borrows line one of David’s prayer to express his own feelings.

Psalm 22 is part of the family of psalms known as “laments.”  They are surprisingly frank pleas from folks at the bottom of inky black holes.  Sometimes it is one person praying:

How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me?  How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?  How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?  Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken (Ps. 13:1-4 ESV).

At other times, it’s a whole group lamenting:

But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies.  You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoil.  You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations (Ps. 44:9-11 ESV).

When Jesus searches for a way to put his wounds into words, his search results in a psalm of lament like these.  Twice in his ministry Jesus prays through a psalm and in both cases, it is a lament (the other time being Lk. 23:46).  They are the perfect prayers for imperfect moments.

 

Praying Our Way Out

What does this mean for us?  First, with the prayer “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus teaches us to pray honestly.  As I noted earlier, lament psalms like the one Jesus leans on here are an “act of bold faith about reality.”  They insist that we experience the world as it really is, not as we might wish it to be.  They insist that nothing is out of bounds when it comes to prayer.[v]  God is big enough to handle your harshest words and your darkest emotions.  If the lament prayers like the one Jesus uses here teach us anything, they teach us to bring it all out on the table.

Second Jesus teaches us to pray hopefully.  The lament psalms—including the one Jesus groans—don’t leave us in the dark.  They ultimately point us to the God who is still there and who still cares.  Psalm 22 begins with a direct statement about God being absent.  But near its conclusion it includes a hope-filled statement about God being present: “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him (Psalm 22:24 ESV).”  Jesus must have this second statement in his heart even as he utters the first statement from his mouth.  Just because it’s dark does not mean God is distant.  Jesus certainly recognized that in the end, God hears and is near.  Jesus gives us permission to speak the unspeakable.  But he also gives us courage to consider the unimaginable.  God does not desert.  God does not abandon.  Despite all appearances, he is standing nearby.

Third, and most importantly, Jesus is teaching us to pray—simply to pray.  The dark holes in life should not suppress prayer.  They should unleash prayer.  If your Bible has the words of Christ in red, you’ll notice that in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion, there’s only one occurrence of red words—this prayer.  In Matthew’s gospel, the only time Jesus verbalizes anything is in a prayer to God.  Not in a conversation with his mother.  Not in an instruction to the criminals crucified alongside him.  But in a prayer to God.  Even at the bottom, Jesus looks up.  He prays hard words.  He prays raw words.  But the important thing is that Jesus prays.  He does not let go just because he feels the Father has.

The best thing you can do when you and God are not on speaking terms is speak.  Even if it’s ugly.  Even if it’s crude.  Even if it’s hard.  Just speak.

Author Madeleine L’Engle once offered this prayer:[vi] “Dear God.  I hate you.  Love, Madeleine.”  Jesus’ prayer from Mark 15 teaches this same duality.  In the dark, his prayer empowers us to voice our hurt in forceful ways.  He enables us to say, if we must, “Dear God, I hate you.”  Yet Jesus’ prayer does not leave us there.  It also fuels our ability to rediscover faith.  It energizes our capacity for trust and hope.  Jesus enables us to say, if we can, “Love, Madeleine.”

Practicing This Prayer

Have you fallen in a hole and as a result just stopped talking to God?  Is there a pain, an injury, or a wound that you no longer even bring up with God because you don’t even think he’s listening?  Jump-start your communication with God—even if you have to use hard and raw words.  Just start talking again.  Make a commitment to pray at least one time every day.  Even if it’s a short prayer, commit to praying something to God every day.

Specifically, this week commit to praying honestly and hopefully.  Close each day this week with a two-fold prayer.  First, at day’s end share with God as honestly as possible one way in which he seemed painfully absent to you that day.  Second, share with God one way in which he seemed refreshingly present to you that day.  In this way, you’ll be praying ideas inspired by Psalm 22 which Jesus quotes in his heart-breaking prayer from the cross: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”