Sunday, March 31, 2019 ~ Lent IV
Dr. John Tamilio III, Pastor
Sermon Series on the Seven Last “Words” of Christ
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ~ Matthew 27:45-46 (Mark 15:33-34)
© 2019, Dr. Tamilio
Both Matthew and Mark record the fourth of Jesus’ final seven words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Actually, this is a quote from the very first verse of Psalm 22:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
Did God forsake Jesus? What is he saying here? Better yet, why is he saying this?
Let’s begin by looking at the key word in this passage: forsaken. The thesaurus gives all kinds of interesting synonyms for this term — among them are deserted, disowned, ignored, jilted, forlorn, godforsaken (that’s interesting from a theological perspective), lonely, outcast, and solitary. The Greek term (after all, the New Testament was written in Koine Greek) is akin to our English word abandoned. Both Matthew and Mark say that Jesus uttered these words from the cross. Jesus felt utterly abandoned by God.
Now whether or not God abandoned Jesus is another story. We will touch upon that in a moment. For now, let us focus on the feeling itself. To feel abandoned is the ultimate in isolation. It is to feel as if you are utterly lost. Child psychologists talk about how infants go through a stage when they fear being abandoned by their parents, particularly their mothers. It is a fear that is hardwired in us. Richelle E. Goodrich is a graphic novelist, which isn’t exactly my cup of tea, but I love this quote of hers: “Abandoned. The word alone sends shudders down a sensitive spine, troubling the thoughts of pained souls as their hurt swells in ripples. It is a sentence of undesired solitude often pronounced on the innocent, the trusting — administered without warning or satisfactory cause.”[1]
Jesus felt this way. How could he not! He was enduring the most horrific of executions. Even though he knew all along that this would happen, experiencing such pain is something altogether different. To suffer such immense pain can easily lead one to feel abandoned by God. If there is nothing else that we can take from this passage it is the assurance that if Jesus felt this way it is ok if and when we feel this way as well.
Christians are not immune from such feelings, no matter what anyone says. Khaldoun A. Sweis writes the following:
I have a secret to tell about many deep and spiritual Christians. It’s a dark secret many of us do not wish to talk about. Many of us wish it was not there. Many will pretend it is not there! But the fact of the matter is that it is universal and epidemic! It is real and affects most of us in profound ways.
We doubt God too! We struggle! They hurt, they cry, they bleed. The Bible is full of real stories of real people who doubt too. And God left these verses, chapters, and stories to remind us that He can handle our doubts.[2]
Wait… What was that last part? God left those stories in the Bible “to remind us that He can handle our doubts”? Those moments of uncertainty that arise every now and then are not an affront to God, because God, through Jesus, felt this way, too. Jesus is not just fully divine; he is fully human as well. God became human in Christ to experience life as we know it. That includes the entire spectrum of human emotions: joy, sadness, hope, love, pain, amusement, awe, fear, empathy, and yes, even doubt. We can doubt, because Jesus doubted, too.
But there is something profoundly theological going on here also. In order for Jesus to fully shoulder the sins of the world and to pay the price for them, God had to momentarily turn his back on him. (This is getting a bit metaphysical, but work with me for a second.) As I just mentioned, Jesus is fully human as well as fully divine. The human Jesus died on the cross, but of course God did not. Even though Jesus never ceased being God while he was on the cross, it is as if the Spirit of God stepped off the cross for the moment and turned his back so that the human Jesus could truly bear the burden of human sin alone. This would explain why Jesus felt forsaken by his Father. N.T. Wright claims that “Part of the whole point of the cross is that there the weight of the world’s evil really did converge upon Jesus, blotting out the sunlight of God’s love as surely as the light of day was blotted out for three hours.”[3]
Boy, most (if not all) of us have felt that way, too, haven’t we? We also cry out wondering why God has (seemingly) forsaken us. Like the Psalmist, we ask,
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?[4]
This is the question asked by the parents who have lost their child. This is the sigh of the drug addict searching for his next fix. This is the plea of the underage girl sold into prostitution through an international human trafficking ring. It is understandable why these people feel deserted by God at these times. However, God is with us in those moments more than ever, even though we feel as if he’s not. The ultimate symbol of that is Christ himself on the cross: God, his arms outstretched to embrace us in our pain, because he has felt the worst pain of all. That’s how much God loves us. He loves us this [arms extended] much! If you have any doubts, simply open your Bible to Isaiah 53:4-5, which reads:
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
Trying to understand the crucifixion and what happened on that first Good Friday is incredibly difficult. How is it that we are redeemed through Christ’s sacrifice? We will cover that in the remaining parts of this sermon series. For now, let us take comfort in two things. First, if Jesus can doubt, so can we. Doubt doesn’t mean that you lack faith. As Richard James’ favorite poet, T.S. Eliot, once said, “doubt and uncertainty are merely a variety of belief.”[5] The second thing is that we can take assurance that in our pain, we are not alone. God shoulders it with us, because, through Jesus, he shouldered the greatest pain of all: he paid the price for the sins of the world on a lonely cross so that even in our darkest doubt, we are free. All praise and thanks and glory be to the risen One! Amen.
[1] Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Away, taken from goodreads.com/quotes/tag/abandoned.
[2] Khaldoun A. Sweis, “Feeling Abandoned and Betrayed by God?” September 25, 2017. Taken from logicallyfaithful.com.
[3] N.T. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, Part 2 (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 190.
[4] Psalm 13:1.
[5] Lyndall Gordon, T.S. Eliot: An Imperfect Life (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1999), 189.