"My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?"

“And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”

Total separation from God. And we have no idea or understanding for what that’s like. The Scriptures tell us of the mystery of our almighty God – how he is both outside of our universe and yet also present among us. He keeps the universe in order – the planets in their orbits – evening and morning – summer and winter. He makes the grass to grow and fruit and grain for us to eat. He causes it to rain on both the righteous and the wicked. While our sin separates us from him, God remains near – keeping humankind from complete chaos, anarchy, and destruction and seeking out and finding the lost by his word. Realize it or not, none of us, saint or sinner, none of us have truly experienced full separation from God.

The Gospels proclaim the story of the Passion - the crucifixion of the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ. The judgment of God gathered as darkness covered the whole land. Jesus is in unimaginable, unbearable agony and pain being nailed hands and feet to a cross. But more unimaginable and unbearable is how God the Father separated himself from his only Son. Jesus experiences hell – total separation from God. Sometimes we may ask, "If Jesus is God, how can God be separated from God?" But how this happens in the mystery of the Trinity is beyond our human understanding and is not explained in the Scriptures. So it remains just that – a mystery. The dread and horror Jesus experiences comes out of him in a cry of terror. It’s almost more than he can bear. He doesn’t call Him Father, but God as he cries out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Jesus bears and experiences the sins of all humankind in all time and place. Forsaken, He becomes the greatest robber, murder, adulterer, and blasphemer of all time as he experiences God’s righteous wrath and anger. He has the power to come down from the cross, to end it all right here, right now – come down from the cross and vindicate himself and condemn his enemies. But he doesn’t. He stays. He drinks the overflowing cup of judgment empty. His love for you and obedience to the Father keeps him on the cross. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The Son of God dies in sadness.

We look at the cross in awe and witness our salvation. We confess, “Why God? Why haven’t you forsaken me? Why haven’t you forsaken me instead of this sinless man? And that’s the Gospel. That’s the gracious love of God for you - that he has not forsaken you. Out of love for you, he forsakes his only Son. Out of love for you, the Son of God dies to pay the enormous price of your sin and mine. His life to give us life – real life – eternal life in him.