by Tom Goodman
God-forsaken.
These days, we just use that term to express our displeasure
at our setting. “What a God-forsaken place!” we’ll say about a region without
water or greenery. Or a city on the skids. Or even just a town that doesn’t
interest us anymore.
We tend to use the term to describe a place, but not a life.
And yet, on the cross Jesus lifted up the cry, “My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?”
He had been forsaken by the religious leadership, forsaken by
his own followers, forsaken by the political leadership that had the duty to
protect him, forsaken by the crowds he served—but nothing, nothing, was like
the abandonment of his Father.
It was a quote from Psalm 22, and Psalm 22 is stunning in
many ways. The old poet described Christ’s crucifixion a thousand years before it
happened:
“They pierce my hands and my feet” (verse 16)
“They divide my clothes among them
and cast lots for my garment” (verse 18)
“My tongue sticks to the roof of my
mouth” (verse 15)
“All who see me mock me; they hurl
insults, shaking their heads. ‘He trusts in the Lord,’ they say, ‘let the Lord
rescue him’” (verses 7-8).
But it is the very first line of the poem that Jesus lifts
up from the cross. How did it come to this? At the start of Jesus’ earthly ministry, at his baptism, the Bible says
the heavens opened, the sun shone out, and the Father said to Jesus, “This is
my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). Now at the end of his earthly life, the heavens close, the sun hides, and
Jesus says to the Father, “Why have you forsaken me?”
Indeed: Why?
Join us this Sunday at 10am as we reverently consider the
question raised in Psalm 22 and echoed from the cross. It’s the last week in Sacred
Blues, our study through selected psalms.
and it will arrive in your inbox each Wednesday
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