Echoes in the Rubble: A Dialogue of Suffering

“God, why did you let it happen? Where were you? Why God?” Psalm 22. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That question that stirs up from the depths of our souls when we're in pain. Right now, I just left the site where a missile strike hit the city of Arad, and I saw the devastation. And I saw the loss. And you can feel the weight, the echo of that question reverberating through the rubble and the chaos.

And then I come with the CBN Israel team and I step into this sanctuary. This place here, Fountain of Tears, a beautiful, artistic, prophetic meditation. Rick Wienecke calls it a dialogue of suffering between the cross and the Holocaust, and I was left speechless as I heard the reflection—the heart behind this Fountain of Tears—this dialogue of what happened at the cross and what happened at the Holocaust, and is there a connection?

I was drawn to this panel here because there's different stations of the cross, the seven sayings of Jesus, what he uttered while he was hanging on the cross giving his life for humanity. Each panel of the cross has a corresponding Jewish person who suffered the atrocious evil that happened at the Holocaust. But this panel here of the cross drew my attention and it just captivated me. It's when Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” And that's the question, right, that we echo, that we say to God, “Where are you?” when all of life seems to vanish.

And it's the question that we hear, it's so deafening, the gasping for air, this promise that reaches into the depths of our pain. And he says, “You will not despise the affliction of the afflicted. You will not hide your face from him. When he calls to you, he, God, will answer.” And this panel reminds me that in the darkest of times, in the darkest period of Jewish history, I don't pretend to understand it. I don't pretend to feel it or even get a glimpse of it. But I do. Those are the words that Jesus can say. “But I do.”

He holds the memory. He holds the pain of every child, every woman, every man across time. And he held it in his heart there on the cross. A man of sorrows acquainted with suffering. And we thought he was stricken by God, but it was our afflictions, our sins. He was pierced for us. He carried the weight of our sins, of our grief and our sorrows. But he didn't stay there on the cross. On the third day, he rose from the dead.

And that hope, that living hope is what gives us life and reminds us that in our darkest moments, God will not hide his face. And what you and I are encouraged to do and reminded through this beautiful depiction that every tear that we have cried, every tear that you have cried, God picks it up. And one day he will lean so close to be able to wipe our tears as Revelation 21 says. He will wipe away every tear. There will be no more pain, no more sorrow, no more death. Those things will be gone and he will heal them in his everlasting arms. And that is because the cross, the cross of Jesus Christ.