"My God, My God"

“From the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? ”

The words ring out in our minds and we can't escape the feeling that this is the greatest injustice, the most inglorious moment of mankind's tragic history: the Son of God in human form stands bleeding profusely, nailed to a crude wooden frame and in agony cries out , “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Is Jesus merely quoting the Psalm of David, His ancestor? Could He mean that God the Father has somehow broken His heart and left Him? Has pain overcome the great plan of salvation and evil triumphed over good? Has Jesus lost the battle? Has He been left for dead, abandoned even by heaven?

The faces that glower up at Him there on that hilltop trigger His memory of earlier just that week: some of these faces were there also. As His thoughts stagger away from the pain of the cross, for a moment He returns to that upward road. The animal smell of His donkey beneath Him was strong and earthy as His little steed plodded along, occasionally raising dust. The people saw the plumes of dust and responded by shedding their cloaks and casting them before His mount. They climbed the palm and olive trees to cut down whole leafy branches to lay on the road for Him to ride upon. The moment fulfilled, as He knew it would, the prophecy of Zachariah, “Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.” Zech. 9:9 The people's voices reached Him, crying: “Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest.” Some questioned Him at the city gates: “Why do you let these people make this fuss? Don't you hear what they're saying to you?” He responded that if He were to forbid them, the very stones would cry out to Him . Not liking His answer, they turned their backs on Him. But just before walking away, they shot back a look, the “ evil eye ” it is called in the East.

Now, on Golgotha, these same faces give Him that evil eye openly. They have won. The voices of the people have been stilled. No one is calling Him David's King or the Lord's Messiah up here, not now. “His own follower betrayed him!” says one of them to another. “The priests paid him 30 pieces of silver.” Jesus remembers the face of Judas, His apostle, how he looked when Jesus gave him the morsel of bread and gravy last night and told him, “What you must do, do it quickly.” The surprise on the face of Judas at being found out made his face a mask of shame and horror. His face glares at Jesus still. Jesus knows, somehow, that Judas is himself already dead.

The sky at noon becomes darker than night. It's an unnatural darkness, a storm without clouds. The sun is a faint disk in the pallid dome. The centurion and the soldiers eat and drink their mid-day meal and sit watching Him. Their jesting reaches His ears. “Thought he was a king, didn't he? A lot like a king he looks now! Ha!” They begin to paw over His clothing, stripped from Him before they laid Him out on His cross. They throw dice over each piece, loudly shouting their claims on the booty, as though there were any value in the shredded cloth now soaked in His blood. “This cross we prepared for Barabbas. Now look who's spread out on it,” one of the soldiers says to his mate.

Barabbas. Jesus sees his mottled face, covered with weeks of unkempt beard and prison grime, staring over at Him at the judgment seat of Pilate. “ Which of these two do you desire that I release to you?” the governor had asked the mob before them. The people cried out, “Barabbas.” Pilate was surprised. “What shall I do then with Jesus who is called Messiah?” The voices rose from the crowd, “Let him be crucified.” Barabbas, of all that assembly, looked the most surprised. Pilate called for a basin of water…

The hours crawl slowly by. The gloom is a weight on Jesus' shoulders. It's as though the sins of mankind, from the dawn of time until doomsday, have all been gathered here, above Jerusalem, to settle down like leaden weights on the Son of man. The air is thick with evil, as every fallen angel that ever existed, hovers round, waiting for some dread moment, some signal to descend on their prey. Here, truly all the evil in the universe is assembled. It triumphs. It exalts. It revels. It inspires vulnerable humans to blasphemy. “He trusted in God;” calls out one of the priests. “Let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.”

Son of God. This He is. This He ever has been in Eternity without beginning. The Father, Son and Holy Ghost have ever been intertwined in eternal love, creative might, intense goodness, majestic beauty. Jesus, the man, is God the Son as well, and He knows the glory that He has shared with His Father when no creatures existed, no worlds had been made, no humans yet lived, no created light had gone out into the vastness of space. Love, the Father is Love. Love between the Son and the Father has forever been the greatest force in existence. That love fulfilled their hearts, overflowed them, and in its zeal created all that exists outside of God. In love , the Son responded to His Father's will to create this universe. In love , the Son fashioned man out of its elements. In love , He called the Holy Spirit to breathe life into the earthmen. In love , He reached out to them, again and again, after they rebelled. Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Samuel, David : they heard His voice, they followed His commands. “Return to Me. Where are you? Why have you forsaken me? I have not forsaken you.” They all, in turn, at His beckoning, heard Him and said to Him, “My God, my God…”

David, such a warrior, such a poet, such a musician, such a passionate witness for Him: so long ago, yet He played David's soul like a harp. He gave His great human forefather an experience, a foretaste of His own passionate moment, a bitter moment, this moment when He, the Son of man, would be lifted high overhead and stand dying, abandoned, rejected, in this cloud of evil, cursed by His very creation. David, under the weight of it all, began his sad song: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He portrayed this scene in plaintive melody and grieving words, compassed about with evil, derided by those who seek His demise. “T hey pierced my hands and my feet,” the Psalmist sings out, so accurately, so prophetically that the echo of the words travel back to the present. “ I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing.” It was all as on this day. David saw it. David felt it : “My God, my God.”

Hours have passed. Each time Jesus feels His life ebbing away, the need to breath forces Him awake, moves Him to betray His own need to leave this place, leave this world of pain, but He must breath. He calls upon His last strength to pull Himself up on those nails, upward against this weight, upward toward that dark sky, until He can puff out the stale air from His lungs and gasp a few times before His collapse. His strength is gone. He will only be able to do this a few more times, won't He? He defies the pain in His extremities and faces the anguish. And He feels it. He is alone with mankind. He is completely one of His fallen creatures. The Father is gone. Where is He? Where did His Father go? Together, He and His Father have embodied love and intimacy, trust and support, glory reflecting glory, design and achievement, will and obedience, in pleasure and in pain—but without a break, without ceasing, for eternity until now. Where is He? Why has he departed?

And the darkness presses down and Jesus realizes all that He has feared. This moment, this dreadful moment, when the sins of every life and the evil that denies His Father's will, are upon Him. The ill will of those who wish Him to fail, and all the lives of those who will benefit from His suffering press upon Him, upon His human flesh, upon His weakening arms and legs, His hands and feet, pierced, screaming out: “Give up! Give it up! No one appreciates this. No one will receive it. It's useless. You die in shame and obscurity. Even the Father has abandoned you in this fool's errand.” Satan's mouth is against His ear. For one last moment, before He must collapse, He summons His strength to cry out His anguish. This eternal moment, once experienced by King David, 1000 years ago, echoes back to Him and escapes His parched lips in a strangled scream: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me?

Jesus sinks one last time in exhaustion. He has been overcome by the weight, the evil, the burden. But that was His mission . His mind clears just once more. He has borne it to His last strength. His human sacrifice has paid the last ounce of the debt for all His creatures. They will be set free. They can know the Father again. Jesus, in His failure , when all evil has met all good at the intersection of a Roman cross, Jesus, the ultimate good has won by dying, and evil is betrayed by itself. Jesus reaches down into His final strength, His final effort, and straining once more for the power to push out His last breath, He rises and says, to His Father, His God, It is finished! Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

We watch in wonder as the One who created Life dies. His death is not vain. He dies for us. What a Savior. Will you track the events of this Holy Week for His glory, laud and honor? He was forsaken so we might be found. My God, my God, why? Because of love. His love never died. He loves you still. My God, my God, our aching souls cry to Him. Why? Because of love, He answers,

PFH+