Jesus bore our sins. He suffered on the cross, accepting the full weight of judgment in our place. Forsaken for us. Broken for us and made sin for us. Is any love greater than this?
In the Gospels of St. Matthew (27:46) and St. Mark (15:34), as Jesus hung on the cross, He cried out with a loud voice, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?
I’ve always thought Jesus’ cry was an acknowledgment that His Father had turned away from Him as He bore the full weight of the sins of all mankind. Because God cannot look on sin, during His hours of suffering on the cross Jesus was abandoned by God. However, after, reading scripture and looking deeper into Christ’s passion and death, I’ve come to a fuller understanding of the significance of those words and how much Christ endured so that we might be reconciled with God.
It was not God who abandoned Jesus, it was mankind — it was us.
First, I cannot imagine the magnitude of Christ’s physical suffering or the pain He endured for every one of us. The Perfect Lamb of God, who was sinless and divine, willingly and obediently endured the cross for our sake. But, His anguish goes much deeper than that. Christ didn’t just suffer physically, He suffered spiritually, and it is in the darkest hours of His spiritual anguish that He cries out.
At the moment of His ultimate rejection by men Jesus prays.
In His anguish, Jesus utters the first words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” Written centuries before His birth, Psalm 22 is a prayer of suffering from David that foretells Christ’s crucifixion and death.
I believe Jesus chose these words not because His father had abandoned Him, but in recognition of God’s holy presence in the darkest hours of His suffering. “In this prayer of Jesus are contained His extreme trust and His abandonment into God’s hands, even when God seems absent, even when He seems to be silent, complying with a plan incomprehensible to us. His is a suffering in communion with us and for us, which derives from love and already bears within it redemption. At the supreme moment, Jesus gives vent to His heart’s grief, but at the same time, makes clear the meaning of the Father’s presence and His consent to the Father’s plan for the salvation of humanity,” — Pope Benedict XVI, ©2012.
Psalm 22 begins in desolation but ends in redemption.
In the beginning of Psalm 22, David is feeling forsaken by God. He’s crying out to the Lord in anguish and desperation. Symbolically and metaphorically Psalm 22 describes Jesus’ suffering and death, “For dogs have compassed Me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed Me: they pierced My hands and My feet. I may tell all My bones: they look and stare upon Me. They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture,” Psalm 22: 16-19.
Psalm 22 is but one of many Old Testament scriptures that allude to Jesus’ death. However, it also speaks of redemption. Specifically, the conversion of nations, “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee. For the kingdom is the Lord’s: and He is the governor among the nations,” Psalm 22: 27-28.
All the suffering of all humanity is caught up in the prayer Jesus cried out to His Father from the cross, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?” In our suffering, in our sin, in the darkest moments of our lives, we often feel abandoned by God. But God never turns away from us. He laid the plan for our salvation before the dawn of creation.
Forsaken for our sake, Jesus fulfilled that plan through His death. God answered that prayer by raising Jesus from the dead.
The Eternal Son of God,
Forsaken for us all.
His death upon the cross,
atonement for the lost.
The Perfect Lamb of God,
bore our human flaws,
upon His perfect flesh,
for our Eternal rest.
The Sinless Son of God,
Forsaken for us all.
Pure Love upon the cross,
poured out for the lost.
The darkest hour drew near,
His voice for all to hear,
“My God, My God,” He cried,
“Why have You left My side?”
Made sin to take our place,
Forsaken for our sake.
Anointed Sacrifice,
born to pay the price.
So that all who believe in Him,
are forgiven of their sins.
The Perfect Lamb of God,
Forsaken for us all.
“It is finished,” Jesus cried,
the gates of Heaven opened wide.
In death He washed away our sin.
In perfect glory rose again.
No greater love will ever be,
Forsaken that we might be freed.
JN Fenwick ©2025 | mothjournal14
JN Fenwick ©2025 | mothjournal14
Discover more from mothjournal14
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
