Jesus now speaks His word from the cross, not to Mary, not to John, but to God the Father. He cries out in abandonment in the God-forsakenness of our sin. Jesus prays in His native Aramaic: “My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?” These are words surfacing from the depths of His soul.
But God the Father isn’t the first to abandon Jesus. The religious leaders also reject Him. The priests, scribes, and Pharisees begin and carry out His prosecution. They should be preaching and teaching that Jesus is the Messiah. But trapped in their misunderstanding of the Old Covenant, they work to make sure that Jesus will die a blasphemous death.
The nation of Israel, His people, also reject Him. Five days after the crowds shouted, “Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” (Matthew 21:9) they cry out for His death: “Crucify him!” (Matthew 27:23). His people hand Him over to the enemy, to Rome, for execution.
Even His friends abandon Him. When troubles arise, they run. One of Jesus’ chosen twelve decides to betray Him. Even His closest friends vanish when the Romans come to arrest Jesus. Peter, who earlier had promised to defend Jesus to the death, denies even knowing Him. Those who follow Him now disassociate themselves. His closest friends scurry to the wind, trying to save their skin.
As Jesus hangs dying on the cross on that gruesome Friday, even the light of the sun deserts him. Darkness covered the land from about noon to 3:00 in the afternoon. The light even flees from the one who once claimed to be the light of the world.
And if you think this betrayal couldn’t get any worse, even justice abandons Jesus. He’s on the cross, although He doesn’t deserve to be. Pontius Pilate, earlier spoke the truth: “I don’t find this man guilty of anything” (John 19:4). Even King Herod acquitted Jesus of the charges (Luke 23:15). But Jesus hangs, nailed to a cross, suffering as the worst of criminals. The scales of justice crack and split.
Some of the people think Jesus is crying out for Elijah. “Eli, Eli!” come from Jesus’ lips. “‘This man is calling Elijah.’” They mistook Jesus’ call to God—Eli means “my God” in Aramaic—for a summons to Elijah the prophet. Their mistake stems from a popular superstition back then. Here’s how their thinking went: If someone suffered an injustice, he would call out to Elijah for vindication. If innocent, Elijah in heaven would intervene to deliver him from injustice.
So, they try to get Jesus to drink some sour wine while they wait to see if Elijah will come. Is Jesus innocent? But Jesus doesn’t need Elijah. He came to fulfill Elijah’s prophecies—and all the prophets of old. He doesn’t need them. His cry is not a call for help, but a cry out of the depths of our fallen humanity, out of our death and despair. Jesus’ abandonment is your abandonment, your darkness, your sin. Jesus is experiencing your death in His flesh.
Others nearby didn’t misunderstand Jesus: “My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?” They know that psalm. Psalm 22 was the desperate cries of King David in his time of trial. “My God, my God, why have You abandoned me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish?”
Many Jews in Jesus’ day had memorized Psalm 22. That prophetic psalm, in stark images, portrayed a crucifixion, long before the mind of man had invented such a death. “Dogs surround me; a pack of villains encircles me. They pierce my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They look at me; they stare at me. They divide my clothing among themselves, and they throw dice for my clothing” (Psalm 22:16-18). Jesus is living and dying this psalm.
With His cry of dereliction, Jesus underscores the prophetic nature of His death. Jesus’ crucifixion is no accident. His death wasn’t only a miscarriage of justice or some quirk of history. The pages of the Old Testament prophesy His death beneath the blackened sky. He’s the thread connecting the Torah, the Prophets, and the Psalms into a unified whole.
David’s sufferings in Psalm 22 are a picture, a shadow, of THE King of David, Jesus, in His time of trial on the cross. The sentences are no coincidences; they are the plan of God from all eternity. The world will find its redemption in the death of the Son of David, the Son of God, Jesus, the Messiah.
Jesus became the Sinner, damned under God’s wrath, cursed on the tree. He is the adulterer, the thief, the murderer, the idolater. He is you. Jesus chose to offer Himself on the altar of God’s justice, taking on Adam’s sin and rebellion—and yours. He makes your sin His own. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us that, in him, we would become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Sin alienates, driving a wedge between God and us, and one another. Because of sin, God drove Adam and Eve away from the garden and barred them from the tree of life. Our sin drives us into isolation, to serve the self, curving us back on ourselves as we exclude others. Sin would shut us away from God and one another, leaving us trapped, warped within sin’s prison, locked from the inside.
In our time of darkness and despair, we cry out, “My God, my God, why have You abandoned me?” But we were the ones who turned our backs on God. We turned from Him. We like sheep went astray, each in his way. We turned from God; God didn’t turn from us.
Jesus, as the perfect Substitute, takes our place. He puts Himself where we are. In so doing, He experiences the silence, darkness, and despair of our collective human soul. Jesus puts Himself into our killing fields, our concentration camps, and gulags. He puts Himself into our abortion clinics and our prisons.
Jesus enters our God-forsaken places, where we cry in despair: “Where are You, God? Did You abandon us?” Jesus goes to the Father with the “why” question for us all. Why does God let this happen? Why do the innocent suffer? Why does a holy and righteous God allow suffering?
Jesus intertwines a paradox in His cry. Jesus prays to His Father, who looks like He abandoned His Son in His time of need. God is absent and silent. Jesus cries out into the darkness from His cross, and His gasp trails off into the silence of space.
You’ve been there, not dying on a cross, but feeling abandoned by God. Perhaps, sorrow and loss loomed large in your life. Maybe, you were undergoing grief and pain. We experience utter despair, thinking that God has left us in a lurch.
Even though our hearts tell us, “God has deserted you,” He hasn’t. God remains with us. We just don’t recognize it. But that’s not what happened to Jesus. He didn’t only feel abandoned by God. As He gasped for His final breath, His Father did disown Him. God did turn away from His Son.
What’s at the root of this separation? We are. We’re to blame. The Father turns His back on Jesus because we turned our back on Him. How did we do turn our back on God? We did that because of our sin, in our sinful rebellion against Him. Our sin brought about our separation with God.
Prophet Isaiah minces no words: “Your sinful acts alienated you from your God. Your sins cloaked his face from you, so he doesn’t hear you” (Isaiah 59:2). We began the alienation! Our first parents left God to walk their chosen road. And we’ve been walking in their footsteps since then. No one is exempt, not you, not me!
And still Jesus prays. Here is the paradox of faith. Faith prays to the God, who is silent, even when our gut gets louder and louder: “God has left you.” Our unbelief tells us that God has closed His hand of blessing. Our emotions whisper, “If God even exists, He doesn’t care about you.”
And yet, faith calls out, “My God.” True trust in God will not let Him wriggle away. It will cling to His promise, even when all that you have is only the promise of God. Remember the words of the faith-filled Roman centurion: “Only say the word, and my servant will be healed” (Matthew 8:8). Faith trusts that the word of Jesus is enough.
What is this faith? It’s the trust Jesus had on the cross, the faith that prayed to God in His abandonment. That faith of Jesus is at the heart of our faith. He trusts for us. He cries out and prays for us. He suffers for us. He dies for us. He embraces us, all so He will be with us in our time of need.
What does this mean? We won’t be alone when death comes to claim us. Jesus won’t abandon us in the Day of Judgment. He will be with us. In baptismal faith, He’s joined Himself to us, and our baptismal faith unites us to Him. He’s with us, always, promising never to leave or abandon us.
Remember Jesus’ faithful word when your heart says that God has left you. On your darkest day, when your emotions say you’re all alone, remember the cry of God’s Son. He called out to heaven in your place. “My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?” Jesus spoke those words, all to make sure that God would never disown you. Do not fear abandonment from your heavenly Father.
“No condemnation now exists for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). Jesus puts you back in God’s good standing. He speaks you into eternal righteousness. That’s why you are safe in Him. That’s why you are not abandoned. Jesus chose to let God turn His back on Him, all so you would be secure with God into eternity! Amen.
