My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? This is a question that many, who trust in the God of Israel, have asked down the centuries in times of crisis, whether personal or corporate.

Separation from God is only one kind of separation; although that would seem to Christian and Jewish thinkers to be the deepest most searing genre of division, and it is something we will return to.

Separations happen in all spheres of human relationships: Parents can be estranged from children; siblings can be at odds with each other, marriages can (sadly) collapse because the covenant made between husband and wife is shattered. Separation does not just happen in relationships between individuals. History is littered with examples of countries, cities, towns and villages torn apart. To this list we would need to add businesses, whether small or multi-national. At the heart of such separations lies more often than not individual human failure. The pain of separation is deep and long lingering. It lodges in our memories on a personal and corporate level. I remember quite vividly some of the disagreements I have had with others in the past, and can sometimes recall expressions, feelings, intensity and words. Sometimes every recall of a relationship that has broken can deepen the damage that has been made.  Separation can stunt our ability to move on and grow; although at times it can be liberating.

An example of the former is found in the following story. There was a United Benefice of Churches in rural Suffolk. Four of the churches got on very well, mixing and attending each others’ gatherings. One church, although legally part of the team was emotionally cold to anything the other churches offered. A brave curate asked at that church’s PCC what the problem actually was. The question was met with incredulity, as a formidable warden replied ‘the Vikings’. Further research showed that the enmity between this Parish and the others stemmed from the fact that the others had not warned that village that the Vikings were coming. Such a story, whilst amusing, serves as a reminder that the pain of separations runs more deep than we often dare to imagine; and require deep remedies to resolve.

There are of course other separations, for example when a child leaves the parental home or a friend or family member will not be seen for a period of time. There is also the separation of death.

The Story of God, as uniquely chronicled in our scriptures, is one of covenantal relationship, which is often cherished and sometimes broken. In a seemingly cyclical spiral: God loves and chooses a people, the people love him, and then wander off often creating gods in their own image leading to God allowing the chosen people to separate themselves from him.  I am deeply committed to the fundamental truth that God has demonstrated a capacity to love, cherish and nurture human beings. There is the other fact that we as human beings have verified time and time again that we are unworthy of such generosity. We have the capacity to rebel.  We have the ability to turn the laws of God on their heads. We have the power to live as if there is no God. In little ways, we are able to choose separation from God. We do so to our cost.

There is another kind of separation, one which we avoid for the most part. It is the separation that Jesus experienced on the Cross. It is not though found in the anguished scream quoting from Psalm 22, ‘My God why have you forsaken me’ or in the unfounded suggestions that somehow Jesus thought of himself as dying in failure.

It is the idea first expounded by Paul, albeit in embryonic terms that in some mysterious way, God placed our sin upon his Son that we might go free.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

At the heart of this idea is that by Jesus experiencing a searing separation for God opens for us the possibility of a lively relationship with God, who is our heavenly father.

Part of the problem with such thinking is that it appears a tad too mechanical. It is for this reason that some liberal thinkers have shunned the approach believing that it amounts to a form of perverse cruelty.

Such an attitude profoundly misunderstands the God of the covenant, who will go to the ends of the earth, lavish his generosity to the end of its limits and beyond to allow people to be reconciled to him. It misconstrues what Paul knows that it is God himself who suffers to bring together all that is separated.

On the Cross, Jesus is separated. He is separated from those who love him. He is separated from those he loves. He is separated from God who cannot bear to look upon the sin that is yours and mind.

Separation for those who believe in Jesus is though the door to forgiveness. By going through that door we will be free; and will begin life’s greatest adventure. That does not quite mask the pain that separation causes.

The Shadow of separation has fallen.