"Why have you forsaken me" [Holy Wednesday reflection]

On this Wednesday of Holy Week, we want to consider this word of Jesus from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

His words are recorded in the Gospel of Matthew Chapter 27 and also in the Gospel of Mark Chapter 15. In both Gospels, the authors give the word as it was heard on Calvary in Aramaic, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”The author then goes on to translate for his readers, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

In the sound of the Aramaic, we hear something of the deep anguish that Jesus experienced. The anguish of physically excruciating pain and the anguish of abandonment. He was abandoned by his friends, by his apostles, and now it seems He is also forsaken by God. 

Perhaps we too have had an experience, maybe we are even experiencing it right now, some tragedy or sorrow which threatens to overwhelm us. It seems like God Our Father is nowhere, that He left us. 

For Jesus, who took on our human nature, there is no part of our human experience beyond His touch, beyond His loving, healing, redeeming touch. So here too, in this moment of abandonment on the Cross, He cries out, along with every other person who has ever cried out to God, the God who seems far off and who doesn’t seem to hear. 

But what’s crucial to note is that Jesus cries out with the opening line of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” 

I would like to encourage us all to take some time during this week to read and to pray with this Psalm, Psalm 22. When you do so, you will begin to understand why Jesus cries out this line as one of the last things He will say before His death. 

This Psalm, Psalm 22, goes on to describe how the author is in great distress, but also how God has historically saved Israel from its enemies and its distress. But also how the psalmists situation is even more desperate than Israel’s. In fact, the details of his suffering as described in the Psalm almost seem like an eyewitness account of Jesus’ sufferings as described in the gospels (“they cast lots for my garments” for instance). And then a bracing turn, a bracing assertion of hope, the psalmist, halfway through Psalm 22, turns to the praise of the Lord and he proclaims, “I will proclaim your name to the assembly, in the community I will praise your name.” Then he goes on with a confident proclamation of the God who will save him, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn, the deliverance you have brought.  

So I pray that this be an encouragement to us as well, as we read this Psalm and pray through it, to know that Jesus stands with us in the midst of our darkest, most painful moments.

He knows we feel abandoned by God, but He also reminds us that it doesn’t stop there. God who is faithful will bring us freedom, salvation, deliverance. Just as He raised Jesus from the tomb and delivered Him from the grave, so He will raise us also.

This is our faith, this is our hope, and this is the victory of Jesus at Easter, and our victory as well. God bless you.