Growing up in a Christian family, went to Sunday school since I have memory, it is very clear to me that God is love and His greatest love action demonstrated on the cross. When sometimes my feeling is not following my knowledge, when I found myself imprisoned in the dark black night, has God abandoned me?
Jesus’s close friend Peter denied that he knew Jesus when Jesus was suffering on the cross. I am not sure what would I do when my close friends turn their back on me at my agony. It is pointless to hate. As a good christian, I might try to put myself into their shoes and try to forgive them. But I can imagine that I might be hurt so much that I would not take the first step to talk to them.
Peter was sad and he cried afterward. But Jesus did not wait Peter take the first step. Instead, Jesus came to Peter personally and restored the relationship. Like Peter, I am weak in faith sometimes, and this is exactly the reason we need a loving Savior who understand our weakness and come to us.
Even when I failed in faith, surrounded with thick dark cloud, like Jesus did not abandon Peter, God would not abandon me.
Mörike was wrenching on the ground in fear, he desperately tracing down the faith and the love that he once known and he failed thoroughly. He felt like even God has forsaken him, where else shall he find comfort? And he written this poem. Mörike has no idea that I found comfort in this poem. It was a relief to know that I am not the only one who struggle with this wrestle of thought.
Mörike was sad, but still having hope that the night will finally done. That is why he was asking: “is the night soon done?” The poem ended up in open questions to be answered by God. If the love in the first two paragraph of this poem is true, the same love that I learned from Sunday school is real, please come to my rescue when I do not feel it, please answer my questions with Your love.
Is the night soon done? Before the crack of dawn, hold on to the true love that being described in the first two paragraph. I guess I know the sources that Mörike refereed to, which is trustworthy. Albeit sometimes I failed to feel it. Just hold on.
I remember my affliction and my wandering,
the bitterness and the gall.
I well remember them,
and my soul is downcast within me.
Yet this I call to mind
and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:19-23 (The Bible)
Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Micah 7:18-19 (The Bible)
