Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Oh ..... Sometimes, it causes me to tremble .... Were you there, when they crucified my Lord?

In the Roman world, the execution of condemned criminals is a public even. Crucifixion, in particular, is done in the most conspicuous places possible, to get the attention of the most people possible. The greater the number of people who see the criminal suffering in prolonged pain - the more powerful is the deterrent. “This is what happens to those who DARE to defy the authority of Rome.”

If you were there, at Golgotha, on the outskirts of Jerusalem, on the day when Jesus of Nazareth was crucified - - - what would you have noticed?

1 THE CENTURION

Perhaps you would have noticed the milling crowd - heckling the man on the center cross. Perhaps you would have seen the anguished look on the faces of some women … standing at a distance, wiping overflowing red eyes, as their gaze is fixed on one whom they obviously loved, as his life fades away in front of them.

You would likely have seen the leather-skinned, Roman soldier. Mark tells us that he is a centurion - an officer in charge of 100 soldiers. He is the one charged with supervising the execution on this particular day. He knows why Jesus is here. He has made sure that there is a sign, posted above the head of this crucified one - mockingly declaring him to be, “King of the Jews”. Ha.

The centurion’s men have finished their work - they have pounded the nails, raised the heavy wooden beams above the ground, until, with a bone-jarring thud, it drops into its base and stands upright. Now they are consumed with playing games for Jesus’ clothes. Verse 54 tells us that - ‘KEEPING WATCH’

THis is a military man, he has been up and down the dusty roads around Jerusalem, giving eye, overseeing so many of these cast-offs of society, as they met their disgraceful end. After a while, you get numb to the horror of it all - it’s just a job. It may be ugly, but somebody has to do it. Somebody has to enforce the laws of Rome, or there will be nothing but chaos. So his heart has become as hard as the shield he carries into battle.

But when this crusty, battle-hardened soldier sees the way in which THIS Jesus lays down his life - - he is moved .... He is touched … He exclaims: ‘Truly, this was THE Son of God”. NOT - “A” son of God - Greek grammar demands the definite article here. This man is THE Son of God. This Roman has lived all of his life immersed in the worship of a pantheon of gods - so many deities worshiped. But this man - up there on that cross - is nothing like any of them:

v. 54, he was filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!” Think about it - the first confession that the crucified Jesus is the Son of God, is not found on the lips of a Jewish religious leader; it is not found on the lips, even of a disciple. It is spoken by a pagan, Gentile - Soldier.

2 THE DARKNESS

What else would you have noticed? Well, you couldn’t have missed the darkness. Verse 45: “Now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.” The sixth hour - noon - at the very moment at which the sun has climbed to the peak of its ascent in the sky, at the brightest part of the day, the sky goes eerily black. What’s going on? It’s not an eclipse. Passover is held when the moon is full - this is not an eclipse. It can’t be a dust storm - these are the moist days of spring.

If you are a Jew, you know your Scriptures - you know that darkness in the daytime is a symbol of the judgment of God. In the book of Exodus, when Pharoah refuses to let the Lord’s people go free - God plunges the nation of Egypt under a blanket of darkness - a plague that shows his anger on the slaveholders of His people.

When the angels appear in Bethlehem, 33 years before this day - the middle of the night becomes as bright as day, as they proclaim, “We bring you good news of great joy for all people - A Savior is born … Christ the Lord.” Night becomes day to proclaim the Good News.

Now we have the opposite - day becomes night, as Jesus dies.

God is angry - - But who is He punishing?

-

3 THE CRY OF JESUS

You would have noticed the centurion, you couldn’t have helped but notice the darkness, but there is nothing that you could possibly have been more struck by than this, if you were there, when they crucified my Lord.

For three hourse, the day has been overcome by eerie night: The singing of the birds is silenced. Mothers call their children in from play: “Joshie, Joshie, Sarah - come in here right now!”. People in the crowd pull their cloaks tightly around their necks and steel their faces against the grim wind … and time oozes slowly by, like the blood that drips slowly but steadily from the cross. Drip. Drip. Drip.

It is now three o’clock. Hanging here, where every movement made sends searing pain through his own body - Jesus struggles to get breath into his lungs .... then looks up to heaven and utters the loud cry:

“Eloi, Eloi, Lema Sabachthani?!”

The cry is so powerful that Matthew, who translates into Greek almost ever word spoken by Jesus in his native aramaic - here records the actual Aramaic words untranslated. Then he translates it for our benefit: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?!”

Why have YOU - forsaken ME?! There is no answer.

Here I feel the overwhelming need to pause. Silence - This is holy ground

Forsaken … by GOD?! This darkness is rejection of HIM! Oh, look at Jesus, the sinless son of God. Before there was time, he was side by side with the Father in inseperable joy. Theologians talk about the perichoresis - the dance of joy - to use a human term - of delight that Father, Son and Spirit lived in through all of eternity past. And by this Son, all things in heaven and on earth were created. In his life on the dusty roads of this planet, he has poured out himself in perfect obedience, “Didn’t you know that I had to be about my Father’s business?!” He said that as a 12 year old to his earthly parents … and he has never turned back. Now, here he hangs … GODFORSAKEN.

WHY SUCH A CRY?!

Our Savior has willingly absorbed the sin of the world: “He who knew no sin, BECAME sin on our behalf” - and now he suffers the ultimate penalty: The precious Lord becomes wretched, ugly and despised in the sight of God’s holiness - as the cup of wrath is poured out on His head.

THAT, friend, is why he cries out. Oh, you know what it is to cry out - hit your finger with a hammer .... but Jesus has suffered, so far, in so much silence.

When Pilate stood on his steps and called down to the crowd: “I can release for you this day - the murderer Barabbas, or Jesus, the healer, teacher, the One who loves the least and the last … the crowd cried out: “Give us Barabbas!” - - - What shall I do with Jesus? “CRUCIFY HIM”. Jesus endured the rejection of the people - - - silently.

When he was handed over to the depraved soldiers who had their way with him, flogging him with leather whips, interlaced with bone, weaving a cruel, sarcastic crown of thorns and plunging it down through flesh on his head - - mockingly kneeling before him, hitting him and spitting in the face of this, the Lord of the universe, their creator! … Jesus endures the mocking - - silently.

As he is laid flat over the rough wooden beams that will become his execution device and the spikes are pounded through soft flesh and tendons of hands and feet - - Jesus endured the pain of the spikes … silently.

But, when the Father turns His back, Jesus cries out in agony - -

“WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!!”

What’s going on here? Please, be clear, Jesus is not charging God with wrongdoing. He is not going through a temporary crisis of faith. This cry is not AGAINST God .... it is TO God.

Jesus

Christian Theology, 3rd ed. Distortion of the Nature of the Godhead

Steve Chalke and Alan Mann: “The cross isn’t a form of cosmic child abuse—a vengeful Father, punishing his Son for an offence he has not even committed. Understandably, both people inside and outside of the Church have found this twisted version of events morally dubious and a huge barrier to faith.”