Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : April 9, 2004
My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?
Good Friday
Why? It's an age-old question. Moses asked it while he was leading the rebellious people of Israel. "Why have you brought this trouble on your servant?" (Numbers 11:11) he asked the Lord. Jeremiah asked it when his faithful preaching brought him hatred and hostility instead of gratitude and repentance. Why did you give me this rotten job? Martha asked it when Jesus finally arrived at her house four days after her brother had died. "Why didn't you come right away?" she asked.
We ask that question too. Why? Why me? Why do I have all the troubles? Why do I get sick? Why did I lose my job? Why did the Lord take my spouse? Why?
But now in our reading this Good Friday, we hear our Lord Jesus ask why: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That is an amazing question for Jesus to have asked. Let's find out why.
Jesus was crucified at about 9:00 in the morning. After he had been on the cross for about three hours, it became dark over the whole land. Was the darkness significant? The Gospel writers thought so. Matthew, Mark and Luke all mention the darkness. A verse in a well-known Lenten hymn, describes the scene from sun's perspective:
Well might the sun in darkness hide
and shut its glories in
when God, the mighty Maker, died
for his own creatures' sin.
(Christian Worship 129:3)
Why did it become dark? God was telling us something. Darkness often has a very distinct meaning in the Bible. The prophet Joel writes, "The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD." (Joel 2:31) Jesus often refers to the wicked being cast out into darkness where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. In the Bible, darkness often means judgment.
That eerie darkness revealed what was happening and, ironically, the darkness sheds light on the question Jesus asked from the midst of that darkness: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus didn't refer to God as his Father, as he had earlier when he prayed for those who crucified him, or as he would later when he committed his soul to the Father. At this point, however, his Father had turned away from him. The Father, who had proclaimed his love for his Son several times for all the world to hear, now hid his face from his Son and showed him none of his Fatherly love. Instead, he let him experience only the wrath of his judgment.
Jesus wanted to know why. Certainly Jesus asked the question to show he was fulfilling the words of Psalm 22, which are the most explicit depiction of the crucifixion in the Old Testament which foreshadowed the coming Savior's utter abandonment by God. But there was more to his question. To be abandoned by God is really the essence of the punishment of hell. Think of the words the King will use to address those on his left on the day of judgment: "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." (Matthew 25:41) St. Paul also says that those who reject the gospel of the Lord Jesus will be shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the majesty of his power. Jesus used the picture many times to describe the suffering that awaited those who didn't put their trust in him. They wouldn't be allowed to enter the wedding feast of heaven because they had eaten their fill of the worldly feast of sin during their life on earth instead of feasting on the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ. The door of heaven would be shut to them for eternity because of the darkness of their sin and their refusal to trust in Jesus for their salvation.
But Jesus had done none of those things. Jesus pursued the closest of relationships with God during his life. In fact, as God himself, he could say that he and the Father were and are one. Jesus was already in the heavenly banquet. He had lived a perfectly righteous life. He was the one person in history who obeyed God every moment of his entire life. So how could he be the one punished as if he had been the only one to commit every single lust, every form of malice, every adulterous act, every murder, every curse, every blasphemy? So Jesus had to ask the question, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Jesus asked, "Why?" And hearing this we immediately ask, "How is it possible that the omniscient Son of God is unable to understand why he was forsaken by God?" After all, the Savior had spoken many times about the purpose for his coming into the world and showed a full and complete understanding of the plan of salvation that he had come to carry out. Several times he even spoke of his upcoming crucifixion. How could he not know now why he was there?
The writer to the Hebrews gives us the answer. In order to be our Savior, Jesus had to be a man; he had to take our place. Hebrews says that Jesus had to be "made like us in every way, but without sin." So Jesus here was speaking according to his human nature in his state of humiliation. Jesus, in his state of humiliation, said that he didn't know when the end of the world would come because he wasn't making full use of his divine power and glory and omniscience. We see the same thing here. And as one of us, he couldn't understand how he could be punished for things he didn't do.
Really, none of us can. No sinner can fully understand how God could condemn his own perfect Son in our place. Jesus' disciples who witnessed Jesus' suffering and death couldn't understand it. God's Son, who had become mankind's sin at this point, couldn't understand it. We can't comprehend it either. But Jesus still showed his willingness to be condemned for crimes and sins he never committed. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Jesus' question is amazing because it shows us the extent to which Jesus would suffer to save us -- he would suffer the fires of hell in our place. Why would he do such a thing? That is at the base of Jesus' amazing question. And the amazing answer to that question tells us simply and profoundly this: Jesus was forsaken for us because he loves us.
Even all the way back in eternity, Jesus said, "I want all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth." (1 Timothy 2:4) I mentioned earlier that Jesus, because of his perfection, was already in God's heavenly banquet hall. But the only way for us to join God at the feast of heaven was for Jesus himself, the sinless Son of God, to walk out of the heavenly wedding feast that was already his, to walk out into the darkness, and to close the door to heaven behind him. That's why it was dark when Jesus was on the cross. Jesus had taken his place among sinners, as Isaiah 53 had foretold, and suffered their punishment. In God's plan of salvation he took all the sins of every sinner in the world and laid them on his own innocent and dearly loved Son. He made his Son to be sin for us and punished him with the punishment of damnation that each of us justly deserves. God the Father no longer looked on Jesus as his beloved Son, even though certainly was that, even as the centurion at the foot of the cross exclaimed. God the Father now looked on him as sin -- sin incarnate. And the Bible tells us time after time that God hates sin and must punish sin with damnation.
That means that we should be where Jesus was -- damned for our sins. So why weren't we there? Why don't we have to go there when we die? We truly deserve to be there. Here is the amazing answer, which is also the amazing answer to Jesus' question from the cross: St. Paul says, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." (Galatians 3:13) As Isaiah said, "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed." (Isaiah 53:5)
Truly we have an amazing answer here as we witness the amazing and terrifying wrath of the living God, the holy God who made heaven and earth. The hymn writer was correct when he said,
If you think of sin but lightly
nor suppose the evil great,
here you see its nature rightly,
here its guilt may estimate.
(Christian Worship 127:3)
All who think that sin is a small thing and that it really doesn't warrant so much attention in our minds, in our churches, and in our sermons, need to understand the amazing answer to Christ's question: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The answer is that it was our sins that caused the Son of God to suffer the torments of the damned in hell. Why was Jesus forsaken? Because we, so often in times of trouble and testing, cry out and complain about God's ways of dealing with us. Why was Jesus forsaken? Because in hours of trial we permit the vain treasures and sinful pleasures of this world to lead us away from God. Why was Jesus forsaken? Because we forsake our God to find happiness and joy in the forbidden fruits that the world offers us.
Let us confess our guilt and bring our sins to Jesus and lay them on that spotless Lamb of God who "bears them all and frees us from the accursed load." Let us hear the cry of the Son of God rising to us from the very depths of the unquenchable fire of hell. Let us believe God's Word which tells us that by taking our sins to that horrible place of torment, he has destroyed them and removed them from us forever. Thus Satan who testifies against us is silenced, and the law that cries out for justice is satisfied. Christ, who tasted eternal death, has closed hell's yawning gates for all who believe in him and cling to him as their Savior.
The answer to Jesus' question is this: God abandoned his own dear Son so that you and I, as children of God by faith in Jesus Christ, will never be abandoned. This is the answer of Scripture. St. Paul writes, "He died for us so that, whether we are awake or asleep, we may live together with him." (1 Thessalonians 5:10) Because of Jesus' sacrifice, God will never forget his promise: "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)
Because God's Son was abandoned for us, we can make Paul's firm conviction our own and say with him, "I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38-39) Yes, even in the hour of death we can rejoice with David and say, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me." (Psalm 23:4) Jesus took our place outside of God's heavenly feast and in doing so opened the gates of heaven to us, so that our place is already prepared. We have the proper attire, the pure, righteous robe washed clean of any sin by Jesus' blood. So we can also say with David, "Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever." (Psalm 23:6)
"Why?" We ask it often. Jesus asked it too when he cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" It is an amazing question because it shows us the mysterious depths of Christ's suffering. And it has an amazing answer -- God abandoned his Son so that we might never be forsaken by God. And so we sing,
Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes;
Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies.
Heav'n's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee;
In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me! Amen.
(Christian Worship 588:7)
