Why Have You Forsaken Me?
Words from the Cross • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Why did the Easter Bunny go to the Barber? Bad Hare day
Found Stir Fry all over my bed this morning… must’ve been sleep woking
As we continue this morning walking through the words of Jesus on the Cross, in a series I have entitled, Words from the Cross, we are looking at some of Jesus’ most mistranslated words on the cross. The first week we talked a little bit about forgiveness as Jesus said, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do,” and last week we looked at Jesus words, “Today you will be with me in paradise,” and we discussed Good people don’t go to heaven, Forgiven people do. And today we are going to look at Jesus’ next statement on the cross as he says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Remember the scene, Jesus has been beaten and the Bible says he was almost unrecognizable, and here he hangs on the cross in great torment, and we will pick up the story this morning in Matthew Matthew 27:45
45 Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.
And here we see midnight darkness at midday. Can you imagine what this would have been like for those standing there? I can only speculate some of them must have thought a terrible thunderstorm was rolling in, but this kind of darkness must have been even deeper, more foreboding than even that. This scripture, most scholars agree was a fulfillment of prophecy about this event in Amos 8:9
9 “And on that day,” declares the Lord God, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight.
And we see the fulfillment of Old Testament scripture coming to life around us.
And it continues… Matthew 27:46
46 And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Here in the middle of darkness, Jesus cries out,”My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
And for so much of my life I understood this incorrectly, I was reading this scripture with American Christian eyes, and not in the way a first century Jew who heard this or would later read it would understand. And it is deep and profound, even Martin Luther grappled with this Bible verse and he said, “How can God, forsake God.” And I think through poor exegesis and Western eyes we have missed what is going on here. I have preached this incorrectly and I am sure you have heard some sermons on this much like I have preached. When we talk about this scripture, the normal point we like to make is Jesus here is crying out, and we say he is saying, this because God has forsaken him, and when we look that word up we see it means to Abandon him. So we start to make assumptions, and we start to try to explain it away. Here is the text from a sermon I preached a few years ago on this very matter, “ He had endured all of the abuse of men without complaining. But the moment God withdrew His presence, Jesus cried out, screaming:
"Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"
And in the middle of darkness he screamed:
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Never one time did He complain when men did their worst. But, when God withdraws He screams out in agony, I can't take this, I don't understand this; why?”
And I think most of you have heard some similar concept preached before. We explain, look when Jesus became sin, God could not look upon him any longer, there was too much there for God to look at so he had to remove his presence from Him. At face value, it really makes sense and we can wrap our minds around it. But what I have learned and what this scripture is saying is so life altering I want to share it with you this morning because it changes everything about what you know here.
And I think there are two ways we normally look at this scripture and takeaways when we preach it.
1st. We say, God cannot look at sin so in this moment He had to turn his back.
2nd We say Jesus had to be forsaken for just a moment so we wouldn’t have to be forsaken.
So, let’s look at the first way we usually preach this.
We say in that moment, God had to turn his head away from Jesus, because God cannot look upon sin, it is impossible for him to do that. And that idea most likely came from Habakkuk 1:13 which says
13 Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves?
And so we see this scripture and our immediate thought when we see Jesus asking God why he has forsaken him, is oh, it makes sense God had to turn his head from Jesus because he cannot look at sin. But this is a complete misunderstanding of this text. This is Habakkuk asking a rhetorical question. He is saying here I thought you couldn’t look upon sin, and what you appear to be doing is not only watching it, but allowing all of this treacherous behaviour and doing nothing about it. And, if we even pause for just one moment, we know this cannot be the case.
We know that God looks upon sin every single moment, if it were impossible for God to look upon sin, he would have to live with his eyes closed, because we know for certain that at every moment of every day there is someone in the world who is sinning, and God in his omnipotence is seeing every single sin commited.
And when we look at these words of Jesus, almost ever scholar will agree when Jesus is speaking these words, “My God, My God why are you forsaking me, he is calling our attention to Psalm 22: 1
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
And what is happening here is ancient way the Hebrews would write. They would ask a question that no one would ever agree to, to create tension and then they would explain it in the following verses. This is exactly what is happening in Psalm 22. The Psalmist is creating a tension - he is saying why have you forsaken me, which is an incredibly crazy thing for a first century Jew to believe. They would have been familiar with Deut 31:6
6 Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. He will not leave you or forsake you.”
And so the Psalmist is setting up this crazy tension for the hearers as he is writing the Psalm and Jesus is recalling this moment for the people around the cross to hear and turn their attention to what is going on.
I want to ask you a question this morning, if there was something in Psalm 22:1 you wanted me to remember or wanted to turn my attention to when we were having a conversation, how would you do it? You would say Psalm 22:1 says, and expect me to turn to that page or expect my memory to go there. But we have to remember there were no chapters in the Bible until the 12th century when they were added by Stephen Langford. And we didn’t get verses inside those chapters until the 16th century when Robert Estienne who came up with the verses we use today. So prior to that he couldn’t say turn to psalm 22. So, how did they do it before then? In fact, Alfred Edersheim was a Jewish Rabbi who converted to Christianity in the 1800’s and was well versed in first century Judaism. He talks about how most first century Jews would have memorized a great deal of scripture and the one way that Jews would have recalled their attention to a piece of scripture is by reciting the first and the last line and it would have had them remember that and everything in between. We have a hard time understanding this because we have chapters and verses, so we say Psalm 22:1 says, and quote it.
So Jesus as he is on the cross first has quoted Psalm 22:1 and in a few weeks we will look at his last words when he says, It is Finished
and look at Psalm 22:31
31…that he has done it.
And what we need to understand about this verse in our Bibles is this is the English rendering of a Greek verse, and the Greek verse is the same equivalent to It is finished. And so here, in these moments on the cross, according to Edersheim, Jesus is wanting those around the cross to remember the words of Psalm 22.
And so when we think about the misconception of the need for God to turn his head and we know Jesus is not only wanting us to look at the Psalm but recall all the words of the Psalm, what does the Psalm tell us about God turning his head?
24 For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.
The Psalmist says he has not hidden his face from him, but he heard him when he cried to him. So we know that God did NOT turn his head from him. I want you to think about for just a moment what is going on here. Our thoughts and what we normally share is God cannot look upon all of this sin so he had to turn his head from Jesus. This offers two problems, first let us think about your everyday life, God in his providence is watching everything that ever happens. He is watching every minute of every event; he is watching and has seen every single sin the world has committed. There is at no moment God must look away from sin, he sees it, he knows about it, it would make no sense in this moment for God to have to look away because of sin. He sees it in our lives all of the time he would not be forced to look away.
So the second way we usually preach this scripture is
Jesus had to be forsaken for just a moment so we wouldn’t have to be forsaken.
The idea here is that Jesus had to be forsaken for a moment so you and I would not be forsaken for eternity. And I think we get to this place as we try to explain away something we have a hard time explaining if we are doing poor exegesis of the text. So we think, well God had to forsake Jesus for just a second so we never would have to be. But look at we read in; Hebrews 13:5-6
5 Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you;
never will I forsake you.”
6 So we say with confidence,
“The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?”
And if we do not understand what Jesus was doing, we see the verses here in Hebrews and then the verses in Matthew and we begin to think, What is going on here. Jesus can’t possibly be going against scripture the scripture has to line up, so the thing that is going on is Jesus is being forsaken so we never have to be. Which would almost give me a pause, because how could it be that Jesus would be the only person God would ever forsake. However, the huge problem with this idea Jesus was forsaken is it ignores the immutability of God. We know God never changes and the bible is FULL of scripture that backs this point.
6 “I the Lord do not change. So you, the descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed.
19 God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?
29 He who is the Glory of Israel does not lie or change his mind; for he is not a human being, that he should change his mind.”
And even the NT
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
It would be impossible for God to forsake himself, remember that word means abandon, even for one second, it would mean God can change from the triune God he is but that is impossible. God has always been triune, he is triune, and he will aways be triune; He cannot abandon himself. Not even for a short moment.
So that begs the question, what is going on here, why did Jesus say this? What does it all mean it goes back to understanding the context and understanding what is going on in these moments. Remember, in the Jewish world the words of Jesus from His cry of being forsaken, to his claim that it is finished is pointing us to the prophecy of Psalm 22.
Look at what happens next in Matthew,
Matthew 27:47 (NIV)
47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
And those hearing would have known he was declaring victory, because they would have known the Psalm and would have expected this to be the way Jesus would have won the victory by Elijah coming to save Him. Remember, to the Jewish people he was the greatest prophet of all time. Jews revered him so much they left an empty seat in their home during passover, because they believed Elijah would usher in the Messiah and it was a symbol of hope and redemption. So, here they are understanding what is happening and thinking here he comes. But remember what we knowfrom Luke 1:17 that John the Baptist came in the spirit of Elijah and ushered in the way of the Messiah, Jesus.
So our story goes on.
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink.
49 The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
So the question then is, what was the answer to the Psalmist question in Psalm 22 what is he pointing out when he lays this rhetorical question out there, why have you forsaken me? Lets look to the end of Psalm 22
19 But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me.
20 Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs.
21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen.
22 I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you.
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.
25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly; before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows.
26 The poor will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise him— may your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him,
28 for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.
29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him— those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.
31 They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!
He has done it The Victory has been won… Ahe has completed it all, he is the ruler over all the nations… everyone shall bow down before him and he will bless them all… My friends that is what was done in the work on the cross… God never forsook Jesus… no indeed… as alfred Edersheim had said, even 400 years before crucification was a thing, God gave hope to those who were there through a psalm.... and that same hope we can have today.
Altar call
There are some of you that are standing here this morning and you think there is no way that God could want to save you, that your sin is too great that God could never love you… and here is the great news, that on the Cross, The God of the universe became every sin you have ever committed and every sin that you will commit, and he never looked away… He has already seen it, he has already counted it, it has already been measured, and he has already died for it and all of that sin does not compete with the blood of Christ and what he has done! You have never been too far away, you could never be too far away, God did not forsake his son on the cross for the sin of ALL MANKIND and he is immutable and he will not forsake you!
