The Hiddeness of God

A Good Friday Reflection

By Dr. Jeff Webb

There are moments in life when God feels… absent.

Not intellectually absent.
Not doctrinally absent.
But experientially absent.

You know the truth. You can quote the promises. You believe He is there.
And yet… it feels like He isn’t.

Prayers seem to rise… and hit the ceiling.
Scripture feels quiet.
Circumstances feel loud.

And somewhere deep in the soul, a question forms that most of us don’t like to say out loud:

“God… where are You?”

We debate that question in churches.
We write books about it.
We build theological frameworks to explain it.

But on Good Friday… we don’t have to debate it.

Because on Good Friday… Jesus asked it.

The Cry That Echoes Through History

Hanging on the Cross, after the beating, after the mocking, after the nails had done their work, Jesus cried
out in his native tongue of Aramaic:

“Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani?”

“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

That is not a calm theological statement.
That is not a polished sermon line.

That is a cry.

And it confronts us with something we don’t expect:

The Son of God experienced the hiddenness of God.

Let that settle for a moment.

The One who had walked in perfect communion with the Father…
The One who had never known a moment of separation…
Now stands in a place where God feels absent.

And his Son, Forsaken.

When Heaven Goes Silent

The original Good Friday was filled with noise.

Crowds shouting.
Leaders accusing.
Soldiers mocking.
Hammers striking.

But behind all that noise… there was a deeper silence.

Heaven is quiet.

No rescue.
No intervention
No voice from above saying, “This is My beloved Son.”

Just darkness.

From noon until three, the sky itself dims—as if creation is responding to what is happening when Heaven seems not to.

And this is where the tension tightens:

God is not absent… but He feels absent.

And if we are honest, that’s the hardest kind of silence to endure.

The Weight Beneath the Words

We must be careful here—not to rush past this moment or explain it away too quickly.

Jesus is not confused.

He knows exactly what is happening.

He is fulfilling prophecy.
He is accomplishing redemption.
He is bearing sin.

And yet… He still cries out.

Why?

Because what He is experiencing is real. When he (the Second Member of the Trinity), “emptied himself” into the form of a man (Phil. 2:7), he took on the fullness of humanity—accepting the frailty of mankind while restraining his power and authority as God.

On the Cross, Jesus felt the full weight of persecution. But not only did he suffer physically and mentally…

He bore the full weight of sin, spiritually.

Your sin.
My sin.
The accumulated rebellion of humanity was laid upon Him.

And with that weight came something far more devastating than physical pain:

The experience of separation.

Not a tearing apart of the Trinity.
Not a fracture in God’s nature.

But a real, relational forsaking as the sin-bearer.

The Father turns His face in judgment.
And the Son feels it.

Fully.

Without relief of any kind.

There were no thoughts of being God while he was on the cross.

The Hiddenness We Know

And suddenly, Good Friday becomes very personal.

Because what Jesus experiences there…we recognize.

Not in the same redemptive sense.
Not with the same cosmic weight.

But in a way that feels hauntingly familiar.

There are seasons when God feels hidden.

And in those moments, we don’t always say it out loud… but we feel it:

“Have You forgotten me?”

Churches wrestle with this.

Some try to explain it away:
“God is always near—just have more faith.”

Others try to systematize it:
“This is just part of spiritual growth.”

But Good Friday does something different.

It dignifies the question.

Because Jesus Himself asked it.

He Is Not Distant—He Is With You

Here is the paradox that Good Friday holds in tension:

Jesus felt abandoned…
while accomplishing the greatest act of divine presence the world has ever known.

Think about that.

In the very moment where God seemed most absent…
He was most powerfully at work.

In the very moment where Heaven seemed silent…
Salvation was being secured.

In the very moment where Jesus felt forsaken…
He was ensuring that we never would be.

Which means this:

The hiddenness of God is not the absence of God.

It is often the place where He is doing His deepest work.

A God Who Doesn’t Stay Distant

But there is something even more profound.

When Jesus cries out, “Why have You forsaken Me?”
He is not just expressing pain.

He is stepping fully into the human experience of divine hiddenness.

He is not standing at a distance, watching us struggle with doubt, silence, and suffering.

He has entered it.

He knows what it feels like when God seems far away.
He knows what it feels like when Heaven is quiet.
He knows what it feels like to cry out… and not receive immediate relief.

And here is where the Gospel turns from theology to comfort:

You are never alone in the feeling of being alone.

Because Christ has been there.

And more than that…

He is there still.

He Was Crying… And Walking With You

We often imagine the Cross as something Jesus did back then.

A historical moment.
A finished event.

And it is.

But it is also something more.

On the Cross, Jesus was not only paying for sin—He was entering into every place where we would ever feel abandoned.

Every hospital room.
Every sleepless night.
Every unanswered prayer.
Every moment of confusion, grief, and silence.

He was there.

Which means when you feel like God is distant…

You are not standing in a place where Christ has never been.

You are standing in a place He has already walked through.

And even now…

He is not absent. He is present.

Quiet, perhaps.
Hidden, maybe.

But present.

Why We Call It Good

If Good Friday ended with silence, it would not be good.

If it ended with abandonment, it would not be good.

If it ended with death having the final word, it would not be good.

But that is not the end of the story.

What looked like absence… was actually provision.
What felt like silence… was actually fulfillment.
What seemed like defeat… was actually victory.

Because three days later, the silence would break.

The hiddenness would lift.

The grave would open.

But For Now… We Sit Here

Good Friday invites us to do somethingwe don’t like to do.

Wait.

Not rush to Easter.
Not skip ahead to resolution.

But sit in the tension.

To acknowledge:

And yet… to trust:

He is still there.

The Invitation

So what do we do with this?

We come honestly.

Not pretending.
Not polishing our prayers.
Not forcing certainty.

We come like Jesus did:

“My God…”

Even in the question… there is faith.

Even in the struggle… there is relationship.

Even in the silence… there is a God who hears.

Final Reflection

On Good Friday, Jesus experienced thehiddenness of God…

So that when we experience it…

We would never experience it alone.