The Helpless Soul – Crying Out to God
Easter Saturday is always a strange day. For us, we know that Sunday is coming. We know the end of the story. But of course, the disciples didn't, and so many modern Christians spend Easter Saturday trying to imagine what the disciples must have been feeling as they tried to deal with what they saw happen on the cross.
I imagine that the disciples' very faith in God had probably been crushed on Good Friday. And many of us experience this – when we see or go through excruciating pain or sorrow, we often wonder if God is actually real. Why would God allow such things? Our pain blinds us to His presence and His goodness.
Faith in the Darkness
There's a beautiful Charles Wesley hymn which I sang at my gran's funeral, called Jesus Lover of My Soul. Listen to the words Charles writes in the one verse:
"Other refuge have I none,
Hangs my helpless soul on thee;
Leave, ah! leave me not alone,
Still support and comfort me."
Wesley seems to be writing from a place of struggle himself. He recognises that he has nobody but God to help him through. And so he cries out, begging God to stay with him and not leave him, and asks for support and comfort in this season of feeling so helpless.
Perhaps the disciples were praying similar prayers that day. We know that Jesus Himself cried out to God the Father while on the cross, and His words came from Psalm 22:1-2 - "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest."
The Divine Pattern of Lament
I think we all have moments in life when our souls feel helpless and crushed. It's part of what it means to be human. But what are we going to do with our pain? Wesley cried out for God's help – as did Jesus, and David who wrote Psalm 22. And all of them were restored to relationship with God later on.
When you're numbed and shell-shocked by pain, cry out to God. Ask for His help. Hang your helpless soul on Him! You have no other refuge or place to hide.
In fact the words that follow these in Wesley's hymn sum it up. May they be your prayer and mine on tough days like Easter Saturday:
"All my trust on thee is stayed,
all my help from thee I bring;
cover my defenseless head
with the shadow of thy wing."
