ABANDONED
TEXT: About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (Matthew 27.46)
This passage makes me want to shut my mouth and hide my face. How can the very Son of God feel abandoned by God, even on the cross?
And yet, He did. You can hear it in the words He chooses: “My God,” He says, not “My Father.” Jesus is speaking as a man like us-a man who feels utterly abandoned by God. And He reflects that distance in the Name He uses.
Jesus is quoting Psalm 22, which David wrote by the power of the Holy Spirit hundreds of years earlier. It’s a terrifying description of what it was like for Jesus to be crucified, in Jesus’ own words. So I suppose we could say David was quoting Jesus, and not the other way around. When the Holy Spirit gets involved, time and space can get mixed up that way.
But it doesn’t really matter who said it first. What matters is that Jesus said it-and because He said it, we too can say it, whenever our lives are going so horribly wrong that we feel God has abandoned us. We too can cry out this way to God, with all the grief and fear and anger in our hearts, and never worry that God will be angry at us for speaking this way. Jesus, who is God Himself, said it before us. Through His suffering, death, and resurrection, Jesus stands with humanity in all of our grief and desperation-and brings us back to God.
WE PRAY: Lord Jesus, when I feel forsaken, be with me and uphold me! Amen.
——————— Reflection Questions
• Have you ever felt forsaken by God?
• Is it a comfort, to know you don’t have to police your language when you pray in desperation?
• Looking back on those times you felt forsaken-were you, really?
Responses