Every now and then, I run across a post that just requires a repost. The following was written by Justin Koran during our Dailey post script, a chat page from The Keys Vineyard.
When you have read it all, if it doesn’t strike a chord, look up Exodus 3:14.
“My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” A Love Letter Across Time
While on the cross, Jesus says the line, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I use to find these words deeply troubling. Did Jesus really feel abandoned by God, the Father? Some readers interpret it that way, and see it as a truly human moment from Jesus, who did not put Himself above feeling the anguish that would come with the kind of suffering He experienced. I heard this interpretation a lot growing up in the church, but it still left me with questions. It wasn’t until many years later that I found out Jesus was quoting the opening lines of Psalm 22.
It’s been helpful for me to imagine Psalm 22, and the scenes depicted in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34, as an exchange between the psalmist and God. The psalm starts with this:
“My God, my God why have you forsaken me? Why are you far from helping me, far from the words of my groaning? O my God, I call by day and you do not answer, and by night but I have no rest.”
It’s clear that the psalmist feels abandoned by God during this moment of suffering. Psalm 22:1-22 is an anguished prayer from someone who feels like God just isn’t listening. But what if He was listening? What if the cross was His response to the grief-stricken cries from everyone who has ever felt like God had left them? By quoting this phrase, and alluding back to Psalm 22, I believe Jesus is not only answering the question of where God is during our darkest moments, but He is also using portions of the psalmist’s own prophetic psalm to answer:
“Scorned by humankind and despised by people. All who see me mock me. They open wide their lips; hey shake the head, saying: “He trusts Yahweh.Let him rescue him. Let him deliver him because he delights in him.” (v. 6-8)
“Like the lion they are at my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; they gaze, they look at me.They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots…” (v. 16-18)
God heard the excruciating pain captured in this prayer, and He personally answered it through the parallels of His own experience on the cross.
“God are you listening?”
“I am.”
“God are you with me in my darkest moments?”
“I am.”
“God save me!”
“I am.”