“My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?”

I clearly heard the numbers on the intercom.  Since I rode the bus to and from school, I always listened carefully to see if my bus was being changed.  On this day it was.  I wrote the replacement bus’ number down and after the bell rang, walked out to where they were parked.  There were five, but the number I wrote down didn’t match any bus.  I checked them twice, but when the buses began pulling out, I jumped on one, hoping it was the right one.  Driving through unknown neighborhoods convinced me it wasn’t.  After everyone else got dropped off, I sat alone near the back.  The driver looked at me in her mirror and said, “This is the last stop.  You gettin’ off?”  “I took the wrong bus,” I said, “I don’t know where I am.”  “Well, that’s not my problem; I’ve got to get this bus back to the station.  If you don’t want to go with me, you gotta get off here.”  What’s a seven-year-old to do?  I got off, and watched the only familiar thing I knew drive off.  There I stood, completely alone, feeling totally abandoned.  Not fun at all.

The text above comes from Matthew 27:45, quoting Psalm 22:1.  In verses 39-40 we see the crowd forsaking Jesus, but he said nothing.  In verses 41-43 the leaders of society forsook him.  Again no response.  Then in verse 44 even the thieves rejected him too, but he remained silent.  Now he hangs in darkness.  In this second three-hour period, the full weight of and punishment for the sins of the world falls squarely on his shoulders.  Already in incredible physical pain, this added weight would take its toll.  But the worst was still to come.  At the end of his time on the cross, “about the ninth hour,” he cries, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” in Aramaic, the language of the common man.  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Now God forsook him, and only now he shouts. This was absolutely the worst.  Here’s why.

In John’s Gospel Jesus spoke of God in terms of intimate and personal relationship:  “My Father.”  He had submitted everything of his to the Father’s will.  He learned what obedience was like as a member of the human family (Hebrews 5:8).  Despite such perfect submission, the Father abandoned him.  When the bus driver forsook me — as distraught as I was — it was not as bad as if my parents had abandoned me.  But Jesus was forsaken by his Father.  The closest earthly comparison would be a child driven out of his home, being completely abandoned and rejected by all family members, at the behest of the father.

But there’s more.  If God is anything, he is intensely personal.  It is the qualities of personhood at the core of God’s nature that gave human beings their personal qualities.  We’re made in his image, in his likeness (Genesis 1:26-27).  Thus we carry the unique capacity to relate to God on an individual and personal level, above all other living things.  We feel pain, emotional and physical.  So did Jesus.  We feel joy and physical excitement.  So did Jesus.  We can sense moments of great significance.  So did Jesus.  But because Jesus is God in human form — God with us (Matthew 1:23) — he felt them all the more.  His experience was ultimately much deeper.  Hebrews 4:15 says, “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize without weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted [tested] in every way, just as we are — yet without sin.”  Indeed!  He does sympathize with our weaknesses, and perfectly so.  Thus, when the Father abandoned him, his experience of abandonment was the most intense abandonment experience possible.  His experiences here caused him to go through so much more than we ever can or ever will.

Think back long ago before God created anything.  We really don’t know what God did then, but what we do know is this:  Father, Son and Spirit enjoyed perfect fellowship in seamless harmony.  The Father’s forsaking his Son abruptly interrupted this divine fellowship.  Unable to stand the sight, he left him to die as any unsaved person, completely cut off from God.  What utter hopelessness, anguish and despair!  This is how ultimately offensive our sins are against a holy and perfect God.  Can we ever fully sense the magnitude of the violation?  No, and we probably never will.  Only God can experience things on God’s level.  That is why hell is not too great a price to pay for those who reject his offer of salvation.  The painful invasion of the holy eternal reaches of the Godhead can never be taken lightly or go unpunished.

God forsook Jesus so that he never would forsake you.  He died the death that you will never die.  The fact that he abandoned him is proof of his undying love and never-ending presence with you: “Never will I leave you [or] forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).  Is your life a consistent testimony of his presence?