Forsaken, Not Abandoned
This was the title given to last week’s Lent Course bible study based on Jesus’ words, cried out in a loud voice, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’
Here are the study notes:
Bible Readings
The Dark Night of the Soul
This is the fourth statement of Christ on the cross and possibly the most difficult to understand and explain. Some commentators feel Jesus was actually forsaken, and that it was a cry of complaint. Some feel He was not actually forsaken, but felt forsaken and expressed it in the words of the psalmist as a cry for help. Yet others feel that He would have uttered it in the context of His understanding of Psalm 22 that ends on a note of triumph with a cry of confidence.
Strong in spirit: ‘About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice…’ This is an astonishing fact. Normally the process of crucifixion paralyses the lungs and clamps the throat, and the victim dies of asphyxiation, being unable to draw another breath. Jesus had now been on the cross for six agonising hours, but the loudness of His cry indicates the strength of character remaining in Him and great earnestness of spirit. His body might be crushed, but His spirit remained strong.
Firm in faith: ‘…My God, my God…’ The words Jesus uttered from Psalm 22 need to be understood in the context of the rest of the psalm, which would have been familiar to Jesus. The psalm is not only an imploring heart cry from the loneliness of pain and distress, but is also a psalm of confidence in God’s grace.
…you are enthroned as the Holy One…
In you, our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
They cried to you and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not disappointed …
From birth I was cast upon you;
from my mother’s womb you have been my God ..
But you, O Lord, be not far off;
O my Strength, come quickly to help me …
For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help …
The opening verses of forsakenness are an expression of honest human emotion, the feelings of facing a circumstance totally alone. However, this is not a psalm of doubt; rather one of supreme confidence in a God who will come through for me, despite the ordeal of feeling totally alone in the midst of personal pain and anguish. In His first statement Jesus had said ‘Father’, and also in His last, but here He calls out, ‘My God’. In these moments, though He cannot see His Father’s face or feel the sense of His presence, He holds on to the assurance that He is My God. Despite the darkness and awfulness He has not lost His sense of a God who controls the universe. In His dark night of the soul His faith clings on to the fact that He is My God. In the depth of His suffering He affirms that God, the God of heaven, is His God.
Sincere in questioning: ‘…why…?’ In this moment Jesus had lost the sense of the Father-Son relationship. It seemed that suddenly the Father’s face was hidden from view, His presence not there and His voice silent. Could it be that in the darkness of the moment, as sin separated and distanced Him so far from the Father’s heart, He had lost His sense of Sonship, as He felt so far away from His heavenly home? The consequences of sin are separation from God. The answer to ‘Why’? is because He had to bear the sins of the world alone; it was for your sake and mine He endured the deep darkness of being forsaken – that we might know the joy of sins forgiven, acceptance in the Beloved, and the eternal reality of the Father’s presence.
Alone in suffering: ‘….hast thou forsaken…’ There was a mysterious and supernatural darkness that descended around the scene of the cross from the third to the sixth hour. Added to that was the air of gloom and despondency that engulfed His followers at the scene, the dark clouds that imminent death brings to the human heart. There was a still deeper darkness around the soul of the dying Saviour. It was so dark and dense that He cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ He was overwhelmed and overcome by being forsaken by His heavenly Father.
It is difficult for us to comprehend the blackness and darkness of the evil wickedness of sin that He took upon Himself – the Sinless One. The immensity of sin was so great that someone has suggested the Father turned His gaze away from its awfulness. Momentarily, because of the separation and alienation of sin, He was God-forsaken. In this moment He tasted hell, and it has been said that these words of Jesus are the most apt description of hell that has ever been uttered. The Father had not abandoned Him, but in His hour of dark trial He felt utterly forsaken.
A personal mission: ‘…me…’. This was the beloved Son. Why should the Father forsake Him? There is no question that Jesus was innocent. He had done nothing to forfeit the favour of God. The Father’s love was upon Him and this never changed and in this sense God would never abandon Him. But in the sense that the Father delivered Him into the hands of the enemy of our souls in order that He could defeat the devil in His own right as the Son of God, He was alone in His mission. It was Christ and Christ alone who defeated and overthrew the enemy of our souls and because of that it had to be ‘me’. In the words of the old hymn, ‘There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin; He only could unlock the gates of heaven and let us in.’ It was necessary for Christ to face and go through this alone for your sake and mine.
Final Thoughts
Jesus endured the dark night of the soul that the curse of sin brings, in order to overcome and dispel its darkness and usher in the kingdom of light. Jesus endured darkness and the loneliness of sin’s separation in His dying that we might experience light and reconciliation in our living.
Loneliness and isolation come to us in different forms. Jesus endured the loneliness of the intense physical pain He felt in His body; the loneliness of separation from His Father, earthly family and close friends; the loneliness that sin injects into the human soul; and the loneliness of mental suffering and anguish as He wrestled with events taking place. Jesus experienced feelings of rejection at the deepest level. His own village threw Him out. He came to His own and they received Him not. As He looked over Jerusalem it caused Him to weep. In His hour of greatest need those He needed most slept and were not there for Him as He agonised in prayer. Of those He had given Himself to, from whom He would expect loyalty and support, one denied, one doubted and another betrayed. Whatever the depth of your rejection, turn to Him, offer it to Him and let Him succour your soul.
Further References
Isaiah 53; Psalm 22; Luke 19:41-46; Matthew 23:37-39; Mark 6:1-4; Luke 4: 16-30