Mark 15:33-34
At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” – which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
My father grew up as the youngest of six children in a single parent home – his father died when he was just 5 years old. His early years were spent in a tiny town in rural Illinois; and although his mother was a wonderful woman, my Dad grew up without a whole lot of supervision.
When he was a sophomore or so in high school, he and two of his best friends (who also eventually went into ministry) decided to have some fun one Halloween night by throwing gravel on people’s porches as they roamed about town. They weren’t trying to hurt anyone; they just liked the sound the gravel made as it scattered over the wooden porches. Well, eventually a homeowner caught a glimpse of the three amigos and recognized them. He promptly called the local police and the boys were quickly arrested and carted off to the town jail.
From what my Dad recalls, the jail was Mayberry-esque and the sheriff was a lot like Andy Griffith. He called each of the boys parents and asked them to come bail their delinquents out of jail. But my Dad’s mother sent his oldest sister in her place. And when the sheriff asked her what he should do with her little brother, his sweet sister said, “Just let him rot in jail!” and left the courthouse.
Now, to be fair, she came back just a couple of hours later and took him home; but by abandoning him to a prison cell overnight, she definitely taught her little brother a lesson!
The Bible tells us that as Jesus’ life ebbed away on the cross, a moment came when he cried out:
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
These are hard words to read; and even harder words to understand. How could God abandon his son at the time of his greatest pain?
There are two ways to try to make sense of Jesus’ shocking question. The first is personal; the second is theological.
On the personal level, we know Jesus was likely quoting from the opening lines of Psalm 22:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer… Psalm 22:1-2
In this Psalm, the writer is both crying out to God in prayer as well as expressing the very human experience of feeling far from God’s help and presence. I would guess that anyone reading this devotional guide has experienced what 16th century mystic St. John of the Cross called “The Dark Night of the Soul”; the “spiritual loneliness” we feel when we struggle to sense the nearness and presence of God. It could be that Jesus, in his humanity, was praying this kind of prayer from the cross.
But on a theological level these words from the prophet Isaiah provide deeper insight:
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53:6
And then these words from the Apostle Paul in the New Testament:
God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21
If, theologically speaking, God transferred to Jesus the sins of the world; not just my sin and your sin, but the sins of all your neighbors, the sins of every human being alive today and who has ever lived; not just the run-of-the-mill sins of selfishness or greed, but the horrific sins of murder and rape and child abuse…all of it; then Jesus became, in that moment, sin itself, and, therefore, the focus of God’s wrath.
And it was the experience of God’s wrath that led Jesus to cry out “why have you forsaken me?”
The gospel tells us Jesus became sin; endured the wrath of God; and experienced being forsaken by God so that you and I don’t have to. Instead, God transfers our sin to his own son so that we can be adopted as his children.
And that is good news indeed.
Brian Coffey
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