My God My God, why have you forsaken me?
Mathew 27: 32-55
Mark 15: 33- 40
Psalm 22:1
We see Jesus cry in the first verse of this psalm and also some other things concerning the crucifixion. Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It is amazing what one can see with it that one did not see at the time. I think only Jesus had that psalm in mind that day. I doubt if the crowd did, or even the disciples, but now we can see that it was a prophecy and it was fulfilled that day.
When he was being mocked and the crowd said, “If you are the son of God, come down from the cross and we will believe”. This would have been a temptation for Jesus.
You can only be tempted to do things that you are actually able to do that would be wrong. These people were scornful, but Jesus really was the son of God. He could have done it just like in the wilderness he could have turned the stones to bread, or he could have jumped off the top of the temple and been saved or he could have taken what would have seemed a short cut to reigning over the world by worshipping the devil. All these things were sore temptations. Let us not gloss over the things that were going on as he hung there. The devil was offering him a way out and he could have taken it, and you and I would be lost.
I think that when we read this we are so familiar with it that we have lost the sense of what a terrible temptation it was for Jesus.
They were saying that if he were the son of God, he should prove it now. They ignored the fact that he had proved it many times in the miracles that had been witnessed and in his power to forgive sin. They were looking for a show.
I cannot think of any other passage of scripture, where we are given a translation. But here, we are told that Jesus cried out
ELOI ELOI LAMA SABACHTHANI. We are told that this means My God My God, why have you forsaken me?
Jesus said this in Aramaic, a widely spoken language of the time. I think he said it in this language rather than Hebrew so that many of the Non Hebrew speaking people would hear it, or at least grasp something of what he said, however, we are told that some thought he was calling upon Elijah. My guess is that those who thought this would be Hebrew speaking.
Mathew and Mark have translated it for the Hebrew readers and hearers ( for in their day the word would be read out in church for illiteracy was rife, so that there could be no mistake, he was not calling for Elijah, he was expressing his agony of being cut off from the father.
We see that not only has God taken great care that we can see the spiritual agony of Christ, but that in having the cry translated we can understand as much as we are able of his agony. It is like God has pulled a veil partly aside for us to see what is beyond it, even if our minds cannot fully comprehend it.
Perhaps they were thinking of the prophecy that said that Elijah would return before the Messiah. This in fact referred to John the Baptist.
Having mocked him, they said let us see if Elijah will come to save him. This too would have been a temptation for Jesus, for on the Mount of transfiguration, he did speak to Elijah and also to Moses.
There is a debate about whether they meant what they said. The author of the gospel knew what Jesus said and meant and these people heard the same words, so it is possible that they did understand what he said and were simply mocking, OR out of curiosity they thought that if God were going to save him then surely he would do it by sending Elijah.
I think that in saying that, the crowd were there for entertainment. At the very least watching someone die was entertainment to them, and then they think that they could be further entertained it Elijah were to come. Their whole approach was wrong.
Note that he did not cry out about the terrible physical pain he was enduring, nor the shame from the mocking because he prayed that they would be forgiven. NO.
Instead, we see in this cry, a glimpse of the spiritual pain he was in for our sake to glorify the father. Let us be in no doubt. Jesus did not die just for us. He died in obedience to Glorify the father and yet in that moment the father had forsaken him. God will not look upon sin, and he became sin for us and the father forsook him.
Being forsaken by God (the father) was in my view by far the most excruciatingly painful part of the crucifixion and in it we not only see the spiritual dimension of Jesus, we see in the emotion it expresses his total humanity as well.
You and I will not experience that sort of pain, because he has endured it for us
In Hebrews 13:5 we are told, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.
However he was forsaken, in a way that I can scarcely imagine.
I wonder what your comprehension is of what it was like to be forsaken like that.
I find that the more I try to think about it, the more I realise that it is beyond my comprehension because I do not have nor will I have that experience.
At the start of this series, we saw in Luke’s gospel that the centurion said, “surely this was a righteous man” In Mathews gospel we are told that he and those with him were terrified. We have the is image that Christ died and it is all peaceful and quiet. There was in fact an earthquake as he died and the curtain in the temple was torn. The earthquake alone would terrify anyone. They would have thought God’s wrath was coming upon them.
The crowd having thought they would be entertained by his death would find nothing entertaining in the earthquake. Or the tearing in two of the curtain in the temple. Instead they saw the terrifying power of God and they were afraid.
My God My God, why have you forsaken me? He knew the answer. But that does not diminish anguish that he felt. I believe he uttered that cry knowing that it would become public knowledge that he said this and it would give us insight to price paid for our sin.
I have no experience of being cut off from God. I find this a mystery, if father son and the holy ghost are all one and the same god then how can one forsake one of the others, yet still be complete? I will never know the answer to that question, but I know that somehow it is true and I accept that by faith. Somehow the father forsook the son and yet what the father did is Holy.
I need to see that, I need that perspective so that I do not treat sin lightly. Even in that cry, he still acknowledged the father. God was still God, but he was doing something new. He was carrying out the promised plan of salvation and doing away with the temple sacrifices.
We are given hint in scripture that temptation was something that happened to Jesus a lot. It was not just the one period in the wilderness, nor do I believe it was just then and the cross. I think it would have been a daily occurrence as the devil sought to thwart Gods plan. Yet Christ did not yield.
As we move into the Easter Period, may we be mindful, not just at this time, but all the time, that our lord paid a heavy price to buy our salvation, and in so doing we see that his grace is magnificent. The seven cries from the cross, should touch us and have as much meaning now as they did then. May we remember what our Lord has done, not just at Easter, but every day.
AMEN
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