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Daily Meditation, Thursday, March 26, 2020, submitted by Greg Robinson

Lent 2020 hasn’t gone the way any of us imagined. The world feels like a very different place than it did on Ash Wednesday. How are we as Christians to respond, and where is God in all of this?

In this time when there are many who are hurting. Still, there is one thing that as Christians we can hold on to - God is with us in our suffering. To know that we only have to look at the Easter story. Jesus is on the cross. He is suffering a death more painful and degrading than we can possibly imagine. Shortly before He draws His last breath Jesus calls out, (Matt 27:46) “My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me”.  Too often we hear about this cry by Jesus without looking at the context. That statement if read in isolation completely misconstrues what Jesus actually meant. Those at the cross would know that He was referring them to Psalm 22. That statement wasn’t meant by Jesus to stand on its own. Jesus’ Jewish followers would know that when you read further on in the psalm it says this. (vs 24) “For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted: Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.” They would know, as we should know, that even at humanity’s darkest hour God had not abandoned Jesus nor us. We can know that He has not abandoned us now. God was with Jesus then and God is with us now. He suffers with us and will see us through to the end of all of this that is going on.

On the first Easter Sunday God resurrected Jesus. Ultimately through the pain and the agony that many in this world are suffering we will, as did Jesus, come out stronger for the experience, and hopefully will have drawn closer to each other both as individuals and as nations.

As we prayerfully work our way through this time let all of us, as Christ’s body, reach out to family, friends and neighbours everywhere and build on both old and new relationships.

If you know of anyone that you feel the church could assist please let Lon, the wardens or others in the church know. If you have an idea as to how we can, as a church, minister to the community then let us know.

God is always with us in good times and particularly in the hard times.