Here is a brief sermon from Good Friday on Jesus saying, "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" from the cross.
Good Friday – My God, My God
The Fourth Word - 45 From noon on, darkness came over the
whole land until three in the afternoon. 46
And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema
sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?"
“I feel so
alone,” she said
to no one in particular perhaps because no one was there. At least that is the
way it seemed to her that afternoon.
“I just feel
so alone,” she
repeated under her breath.
As she sat there in the uncomfortable
pleather chair, waiting for the news, the weight of her solitude began to push
in upon her with a ferocity she was not sure she would be able to bear.
“Why,”
she thought, or perhaps she said it out loud, not that it really mattered. “Why
in this moment when I need comfort the most do I feel so alone?”
She buried her heavy head into her hands and began to cry…
Looking toward the sky she said, “Do
you hear me? Why? Why do I feel so alone?”
This seemingly familiar scene is
difficult to witness. No one wants to see another person struggle with feelings
of solitude and abandonment.
If we are honest, we struggle to
openly admit that such despair even exists. In fact, we clutter our lives with
things and our calendars with appointments just to make sure that we avoid
these feelings at all cost.
However, feelings such as this are
impossible to outrun. Awaiting the
diagnosis, hearing the sad news, identifying our own feelings of inadequacy…We
feel alone. We feel abandoned. These feelings are a part of the human
experience. They are impossible to outrun.
On this day, on a dreaded tree, a man
hangs to condemned to die. There, this man named Jesus suffers unimaginable
pain, cruel indignity, and heart rending sorrow. And as the time of his death
approaches he speaks once again. The author of the Gospel of Matthew writes
that Jesus cried with a loud voice, “My
God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Some of those gathered at the foot of the cross misunderstood his words. They
thought that he was calling upon Elijah, who some traditions held was to
reappear to usher in the kingdom of God. It was an honest mistake. That was event for which many were longing.
But that was not the sentiment that came from Jesus’
mouth. Those weren’t the words
that spilled from the lips of the crucified Emmanuel.
No, hanging on the cross, Jesus
recited the words of the 22nd Psalm in his mother tongue of Aramaic.
“Eli, Eli,
lema sabachthani?” My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?
And we cringe at the words. For as
one commentator wrote, “We have
been taught to give pat answers in the face of life’s
difficult questions, and (saying such a thing), certainly, is not one of (the
pat answers we were trained to give). But Jesus knew what he was saying. By
uttering these words from Psalm 22, he is challenging, daring, us to consider things we would rather not, notions as
sublime as the inseparability of suffering and glory, of incarnation, of
eschatological hope from the ashen brink of death.”
(Matthews 286)
Jesus knew the pain of separation
more powerfully than one could ever imagine. Jesus, the Son of God, Emmanuel,
God with us, understood the words of the psalmist deeply and in a manner no one
had ever felt before or since.
Marti Steussy, Old Testament
professor and Psalm scholar at Christian Theological Seminary here in
Indianapolis writes, “Jesus
experienced a variety of humiliations representing a whole range of human
suffering and alienation, even unto the sense of being forsaken by God. At this
point, we see Jesus’ real
humanity…” (Steussy
89)
This
muddies the waters of a sanitized faith. It is much easier to consider a
swaddled baby in a manger than a naked man hanging on a tree. It is more
wonderful to consider the empty tomb than a blood stained cross. These are God
forsaken moments. These are moments of
felt-absence not soothing presence.
There on the cross, with the cry of
the psalmist on his lips, “Jesus will
be left – forsaken –
to the forces of evil. He will really suffer, and he will really die…
Both the psalmist and Jesus trust God to save, not by magically eliminating all
pain and suffering, but by working beyond human knowing in and through pain and
suffering.” (Long 318)
In Psalm 22, “the
psalmist laments that she feels that God has forsaken her, but to whom does she
lament? She laments to the God who does not forsake us. When Jesus cried out on
that cross, he was not speaking to existential nothingness, but to the God who
hears and delivers the afflicted. His words did not express a lack of faith,
but were a revolutionary credo of trust in the only one who could comfort him –
and us.” (Matthews
288)
Experience has taught us that life is
not sanitary. And neither is our faith.
We struggle with feelings of
abandonment as we sit in those uncomfortable pleather chairs of life, waiting
for the news.
And on our lips and in our hearts are
the words of the psalmist and our Savior, “My
God, my God why have you forsaken me?”
This is not a faithless statement!
For in its utterance, we address the one who is never far from us.
Yes, even in the moments of
felt-absence, the God incarnate understands. Even in the midst of life’s
suffering and the
isolation and aloneness that often accompany it, Emmanuel,
God with us, has the courage to dwell...with us…
even there in the absence. Amen
Prayer
Almighty God, on this Good Friday in
the shadow of the cross, may we have the courage to cry out to you even when we
feel abandoned. For today, hanging on Golgotha’s
cross is Emmanuel, God with us even in our moments of felt absence. It is to
you we call. It is to you we pray. Amen.
Matthews, Jr., William P.
"Matt". "Pastoral Perspective on Psalm 22." Feasting on
the Word: Year A, Vol. 2. Ed. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville:
John Knox Press, 2010. 284-289.
Steussy, Marti J. Psalms. St.
Louis, Missouri: Chalice Press, 2004.
