My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Random thoughts

Illustration: kids abandoned in the forest

The plane had crashed, three adults were now dead, leaving 4 children, one an infant, alive to fend for themselves in the jungles of Colombia. Forsaken, abandoned, but not without hope. The children were focused on one thing continuing to hope that someone would save them. Days past, their cries ringing out throughout the forest drew search and rescue ever closer. Day 39, still no hope. The children now hours from the crash site, physically weak, mentally exhausted, but hope still remains. They find a clearing in the dense forest, day 40. Rescuers hear the crying from the infant and no they are close. The minutes feel like hours to these emaciated little children and then finally, the first site of rescue. Their hope was not for nothing. Their resolve not for nothing. Their forsakenness, just for a moment.

Scripture, 2,000 years ago, Jesus Christ finds himself crying out the words found in Matthew 27:46, My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? The sins of all the world weighing on Jesus has he hangs from the cross, hours of darkness have been over the land and Jesus had been silent for hours til now. With a loud cry of abandonment. This loud cry was not without hope, but was anchored in a covenant promise that the Father had made a couple thousand years before Jesus came to earth as a man. In Deuteronomy 31:8

Deuteronomy 31:8 ESV

It is the Lord who goes before you. He will be with you; he will not leave you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed.”

It is in this promise, that the suffering psalmist in Psalm 22 cries out as well My God, My God why have you forsaken me? He continues in Psalm 22:3–5“Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.”

Jesus is crying out this same psalm, in these final moments on the cross Jesus forsaken but for a moment is facing death but having complete hope. In these final moments he has Scripture on His mind. He knows while he might feel forsaken for a moment that His Father is good Father, that he will never forsake or abandon us.

Application

This cry of Jesus gives us hope as well. Hope that when we feel moments of abandonment that our hope lies in the promise of Scripture. That the darkness might feel overwhelming in our moments of need but the light of His truth are our anchor to the storms above. That in the worst of times our situation may not improve here, but our Father has prepared a place for us because there He will not leave us nor forsake us, He desires us to be with Him to know that He is the Father that always shows up, He is the Father that never forgets, He is the Father that always forgives, His presence is refreshing, His Words are always true, His hope is eternal, and in the final moments Jesus knows this to be true.