In 2007, Mother Teresa’s private writings were released in a book called Come Be My Light: The Private Writings of the “Saint of Calcutta.” It is a remarkable collection of thoughts that come from a remarkable woman. For some, however, they were strange and alien. They didn’t produce any striking accounts of God’s presence or special visitations in her life. Instead, they spoke about loneliness, alienation, a sense of abandonment, a sense of not finding God.

We live in a world that is shaped by experience. Contemporary Christianity appears plagued with concepts of emotional highs, deep intimate experiences of Christ, joy, hope, fulfilment, purpose, and meaning. We go to church to be entertained, amused, to meet people, and to experience God. We are told that if churches don’t have something appealing, something that attracts “the youth,” keeps “the children,” and fulfils “the adults,” then we are missing the point. No wonder, when Mother Teresa writes about “this terrible sense of loss—this untold darkness—this loneliness—the continual yearning for God—which gives me pain deep down in my heart,” people are left bewildered.

And yet this is the story of Ministry. It has been this way since recorded history. Moses is called by God to redeem Israel from slavery in Egypt. But, as we read the account in Exodus 3-4, Moses objects with questions about God’s name, about his credibility, about his inadequate capacity to speak clearly, and then a final plea: “O Lord, please send someone else to do it” (Ex. 4:13).

I am certain that much of his time leading Israel brought him back to wishing he had pushed God on the last one. Moses had a tough time. The people grumbled and complained. Despite the miracles God performed the wonder of these waned quickly. Moses was burdened as Israel’s judge until his father-in-law, Jethro, made him see sense and appointed the elders of Israel. He cried in despair after Israel created the golden calf wondering where God was and whether he could ever be acceptable to Him (Ex. 33:12-23). And yet at this point, in the darkest moment of the Exodus, Moses is blinded by the glory of God.

Elijah is also worth recalling. He was despised by the political authorities, and hunted down with a price on his head. How alone he must have felt at Mt. Carmel while the numerous priests of Baal carried on in a frantic ritual until they were exhausted with no results, only to go forward, create an unburnable sacrifice, and say to God “It’s your turn now,” and finally to find the entire sacrifice consumed and the priests of Baal obliterated. This culling of the priests of Baal infuriates Ahab and Jezebel, who renew their purge against Elijah and force him to flee and hide in a mountain cave on Mt. Horeb. At the point of exhaustion and willing to simply be left to die, God comes to Elijah. The wind howls, the earth shakes, fire roars, but Elijah finds God, in the midst of his despair, in a still small whisper that drifted in the breeze.

This is the Ministry, exhilarating and utterly devastating. One minute pastors are loved by their people, and in the blink of an eye they turn against them. They are expected to perform miracles, and when they are not what people expect, they are rejected and disregarded. They are told to seek visionaries and great leaders who will solve all their problems, and when pastors fail to be the spectacular managers of the modern church, as people think they should be, they are considered failures. Pastors struggle to balance their families, spouses, friends, colleagues, work, faith, and spirituality.

Pastors took their formation in community, yet when they were ordained they were sent out alone to survive the ravages of the world. Leadership is a lonely existence, but Ministry can seem even lonelier. Anyone who has been engaged in Ministry knows the cries of Mother Teresa, “The place of God in my soul is blank.” “There is no God in me… I just hear my own heart cry out—‘My God’ and nothing comes.” Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani. My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?

A short while back, I was chatting with a Church of Christ (Australia) colleague. The conversation began with a query why Lutherans do not practice open communion. I explained to him that, for us, the sacrament of the altar is about the presence of Christ. When we eat the bread and drink the cup, we are not remembering a past event, but that the cross becomes real for us right then and there. It is as if Christ has opened his arms to physically embrace us now, in the present, with all the love and forgiveness that put him on the cross. He was fascinated with this and said, “I don’t think I sit well within my theological tradition, for I prefer the way you put it and have often thought of the sacrament in that way.” This led us on to a discussion on the theology of the cross.

He shared a story about a fellow Church of Christ minister who recently experienced a tragedy in his life. His young grandson, despite all the medical aid and the constant prayer, had died. This minister took this death particularly hard. He had buried many young children in his years, but this was personal. He found the funeral service particularly hard. Here they talked about hope, life, and the wonder of God. They talked about the joy of having the child live as long as he did. And yet this minister felt empty and alone in his grief.

My friend shared how he struggled watching his friend endure and realised that nothing anyone in his church could say or do would lessen this. In our discussion I suggested to him that too often Reformed theology only goes backs to the glory of the resurrection. It forgets that one can’t have the resurrection without the cross, and that it is the cross that gives comfort in our suffering. God doesn’t provide an answer to our pain; He provides an answerer, one who endures with us, Christ who carries our pain and makes it his own. I suggested to my friend that our theology of the sacrament, as is the case with all our theology, centers on the cross. Here, in the darkness of our suffering Christ is present.

I think that is what we miss so often. The Christian walk is one of highs and lows, and yet it is in the lows that we most need to find God. We need to find a God Who is one with us, Who endures as we endure, Who suffers as we suffer, Who cries as we cry. This God is found in the cross, for here our loneliness, suffering, pain, anguish, rejection, isolation, abandonment, and darkness is taken on. I really believe that when Christ says, “Give to me your burdens and I will make them light,” he is talking about the cross. When he cries from it Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani, it is our cry of “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” We cry it because we know God journeys with us through our “dark nights of the soul.” There is no human remedy for this; only God can carry us in these times of our lives. The mere fact that we cry them means we already know of a God Who dwells there, in the darkness, in the pain, and in the loneliness of our journey. Christ’s passion bears the burden and darkness of our sinful world—and our struggle finds hope and assurance through this alone. When we cry Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani we release ourselves and become one with Christ who bears all things, endures all things, and loves all things.

I think we have a large fallout in Ministry across the church today simply because we fail to realise that in our darkest moments, our struggles and pain, our loneliness and isolation, that there we have the most intense moments when our spirit resonates with the one Who was crucified for us. Rather than look for the small glimmer of light as we sit quietly and wait for God, we panic, run around frantically, consider whether God has left us, and drift away hurt and embittered. But as Moses found on Mt. Sinai, as Elijah found on Mt. Horeb, as Jesus revealed on Calvary, our God is found in the still small whispers that drift across the breeze and echoes quietly in our darkness. Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani is answered with, “No, my loved one, I bought you from the womb, I am your God and I am not far from you. I am here with you.”

David Grulke is a Senior Chaplain in the Lutheran Church of Australia serving in the Australian army.