The fifth “word” of Jesus spoken from the cross:

About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

Matthew 27:46

Midday to midnight

In the hours before these words were spoken. Something strange happened. Both Matthew and Mark record these words as spoken against a dramatic backdrop. They tell us that from midday till three in the afternoon, “darkness came over the whole land”.

Imagine it:

The midday sun, with all its dazzling, brilliant light.
Darkened. 
The middle-eastern sunshine, with all its intense, blazing radiance.
Disappeared.
The celestial furnace, with all its fierce, powerful heat. 
Dampened. 

Noon turned night. Day made dark.

And what is being played out in the sky above, is mirrored on the cross below.

The dazzling radiance of Jesus’ life was now plunged into dreadful darkness.

And no life had traced a more marvelous arc across Earth’s dim days than Jesus’. No-one’s actions had emitted brighter rays of love and mercy into our dark, suffering world than Jesus’. No man’s deeds had ever reached so high a zenith of servant-hearted compassion for others, as this man Jesus. The “bright morning star” that is Jesus, shone and burned in life with an intensity of love unrivalled in all the ages of human history.

And the climax of this radiant life? Its high point? Its noon?

A brutal, ignominious death on a wooden cross. Utterly alone and forsaken. His only company, two dying criminals.

The radiant one, who’s life shone with luminous splendor, now ending in the grim embarrassment and humiliation of the cross. All alone. In darkness. Forsaken.

The Son’s exchange

Before coming to earth, orthodox Christian belief is that Jesus was the eternally begotten Son of God the Father. He was fully God. He had existed for all time in joyful harmony with the Father and the Spirit. One God who existed before all else. With no beginning or end.

But this same God “took on flesh”. By being born in a stable, he became a real, limited, finite man. One who really did live and breathe on this same earth we also call home.

The creator became creature. The “infinite became an infant”. The universe-craftsman became an honest carpenter.

This is radical enough. That the author of life would humble himself enough to live as a human.

But beyond this, that the eternally joyful, source of all life could himself actually die, is simply unthinkable.

But that the Son would experience “forsaken-ness” from his Father, whilst hanging from a piece of wood on a hill outside the city walls. Separation from the one he had been united with forever. Well, I don’t actually have words for it. The exchange of heavenly, relational glory with his Father, for the grisly abandonment of his crucifixion is unimaginable and impossible to describe.

But Jesus helps us see just how awful his current predicament is. His cry from the cross is actually a direct quotation from the beginning of Psalm 22. It is no coincidence that this was the pre-eminent scripture in his mind as he suffered. It details his experience with grim accuracy:

“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.”

Psalms 22:14‭-‬15 NIV

Laid in the “dust of death” by his own Father. Jesus could not be any further from where he had started.

Why did this happen?

People have called this “divine child abuse”. How could a Father possibly abandon his Son in his moment of deepest, darkest despair.

The words Jesus cried out are recorded for us in the original Aramaic. The sound of these words really did ring out on that hilltop long ago. Say them now, hear their sound. Now imagine them coming from the mouth, “dried up like a potsherd” of Jesus on the cusp of death.

“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”

As well as the unimaginable physical torment. As Jesus hangs on the cross, his words tell us that he experienced real spiritual and relational forsaken-ness from the Father. He had “turned his face away” from his Son. It is hard to imagine such torture. Such solitary confinement. Such isolation. Especially from the one he knew best and longest and loved the most.

But why?

He was forsaken for our sake.

I want this reality to sweep over you like a tidal wave. This is right at the heart of why I worship God. It is tragedy, but oh I pray you would be able to see the triumph of it all.

What it means for you

Jesus underwent this abandonment from his Father, so that you would never have to.

He was cast off into darkness so that you could know the eternal embrace of the “everlasting arms” that will never fail or let you go.

He was exiled on the cross so that you could be welcomed into an eternal home and family.

Jesus underwent this separation willingly. And he did it for you and me. He did it because winning you back was worth it.

Sin is an offence against God and our fellow humans. God cannot bear to see it defile his glory and harm his people.

And it was our sin that held Jesus there, pinning him to the tree. It was our corruption that was laid fully on his blameless frame. Our evil deeds that nailed him to the cross.

He who knew no sin, became sin for us. He took the offence and the curse of that sin fully and totally upon himself. And God the Father, holy and pure, sees it all heaped upon this spectacle of suffering, his own Son, and he turns his face from it. All the vileness of humanity borne by a single man. It was horrible what Jesus became for us.

But by it, he has won complete and total liberation for us. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus and there never can be, because of the cross. There, all of our sins have been laid upon him. Every. Last. One.

Don’t get me wrong. This is the greatest tragedy there has ever been. The most innocent, perfect being, bearing all the cursed sin of man and being punished as if they were his own. The cross, when understood properly, should be a place of sorrowful rejoicing. Sorrow that we caused it. Joy, that by it, we are set free.

Being truly forsaken by his Father is evidence that the full, terrible price of our sin has been paid by the Son. There is no further payment required. Our sin has been dealt with once and for all.

But maybe you are reeling from the sins that others have committed against you. If you are, know that in Jesus, you have a friend you can turn to. One you can trust. One who understands. One who knows what it’s like to be innocent yet abused. One who knows the heartbreak of betrayal and abandonment by loved ones. Who knows the despair of seeing kindness and trust returned with evil. If that has been your experience, my own heart breaks for you along with his. But know that Jesus is right there with you. Broken-hearted but beside you. In agony but aware of your pain too. He is contending for your own broken heart to know his powerful presence and to know his promise that he will one day wipe away every tear. And “he will only have to do it once”.

You can cling to him in the depths of your struggles, his love is a sweet and tender balm to the wounds inflicted upon us by others. He would see you restored and strengthened. He has honoured you by sacrificing his very life for you. He has given you all of himself, sparing nothing.

The parable of the prodigal son is a story worth reading. It tells of a wayward son who left his home to waste himself on earthly things. But it also tells us about the heart of the Father he left behind. I hope that as you realise what God went through in order to bring you home, the abandonment that earned your invitation, it would resonate deep within your heart. That you would take those first homeward steps towards the Father who is waiting with open arms, ready to embrace you just as you are.

The cross has triumphed

Jesus was forsaken so that you might be found. And having been found, that you might find the joy and comfort of knowing the God who died for you.

That tragic 22nd Psalm that Jesus quoted from the cross, ends with hopeful anticipation. Of a day when people will hear of what happened there. Of what it achieved for them.

“Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!“

Psalms 22:30‭-‬31 NIV

And that is my proclamation. That God has indeed done it.

We will see more of what has been done in the penultimate “word”, but one thing it has achieved is to give hope and strength to his people while they wait for him.

Below is an excerpt of a missionary to the New Hebrides, John G Paton. He recalls taking refuge high in a tree when being hunted by an angry tribal chief. He speaks of what it is like to have found the fellowship of the one who was forsaken for our sake:

“I climbed into the tree and was left there alone in the bush. The hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but of yesterday. I heard the frequent discharging of muskets, and the yells of the Savages. Yet I sat there among the branches, as safe as in the arms of Jesus. Never, in all my sorrows, did my Lord draw nearer to me, and speak more soothingly in my soul, than when the moonlight flickered among those chestnut leaves, and the night air played on my throbbing brow, as I told all my heart to Jesus. Alone, yet not alone! If it be to glorify my God, I will not grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree, to feel again my Savior’s spiritual presence, to enjoy His consoling fellowship. If thus thrown back upon your own soul, alone, all alone, in the midnight, in the bush, in the very embrace of death itself, have you a Friend that will not fail you then?“

Alone, yet not alone! You can tell all your heart to Jesus and find a friend who will never fail you. All because the sinless saviour died, setting our sinful souls free.

This is the triumph of the cross.