The Divine Crash

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Psalm 22:1 My God! My God, why have you left me all alone? Why are you so far from saving me— so far from my anguished groans?

Matthew 27:46 At about three Jesus cried out with a loud shout, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” which means, “My God, my God, why have you left me?”

Mark 15:33-38 At three, Jesus cried out with a loud shout, “Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani,” which means, “My God, my God, why have you left me?”

It has been said that nothing in a person’s whole history is so important as the end.  Which then brings the question for the end of Jesus’ life.

A few things happened.

First the curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom.

The curtain was the barrier between the holy area of the temple and the holy of holies

- This was considered the place where God actually dwelled

- No one else even allowed to look in there

- Only chief priests could go in there 1 time per year if they were good enough.

- had a rope around their ankle incase they were wrong to pull them out.

This torn curtain means a few things:

- The holies of holies can now be seen and is accessible because of Jesus’ death on the cross.

- Jews and Gentiles can now access the throne room of God because of Jesus’s death on the cross

- Hebrews 9 says that Jesus is the perfect high priest who made us spotless before God and able to walk into the holy of holies.

- It means that it is no longer about hoping to get to perfection before we die.  It means that through Jesus’ work on the cross we are seen as perfect by the God who made us.

- It means that the whole act of the death of Jesus means life and death are not mutually exclusive.  The dead walk and talk and just because you are walking and talking doesn’t mean you aren’t dead.

- It means that no matter what you have done, when you did it, who you did it to, or many times you have done it the place where God dwells is open to you.

Darkness:

- The whole world went dark.

- “From Noon on the whole earth went dark.”

- Couldn’t have been an eclipse because Passover only happens on full moon which mean an eclipse would have been impossible. Only explanation is supernatural.

- Jude 13: The Darkest is reserved for the most obstinate unbelievers

- Jesus became the darkest?

- Jesus became an obstinate unbeliever?

Whatever Jesus became was equal to darkness. loneliness, abandonment, isolation, and for Jude 13 that darkness is reserved only for the worst of all sinners.

Jesus then cries out Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani.

- The Aramaic here is telling.

- Matthew is writing to a Jewish audience who would have known hebrew and yet he translates it, why?

- Mark is writing to a gentile audience who would not have known the aramaic so why put it in?

- Not sure on either section but what it means for us is that Jesus probably said it because both authors thought it important enough to put in regardless of their audience.

This phrase is “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”

- This is a quote from Psalm 22:1 which reads: Psalm 22:1 My God! My God, why have you left me all alone? Why are you so far from saving me— so far from my anguished groans?

- Psalm written by David.

- A traditional Lament that has contains the suffering person, God, and the person’s enemies.

- David is expressing such anguish we cannot fathom.

- Most cannot explain or understand what it is to be forsaken by God.

- Some of us can though.  Sometimes we know exactly what it feels like to be abandoned by God.

- To feel alone, cut off and distant from God.

- Regardless of how close we actually are to God what we feel about our distance becomes our reality

- When we come home from work and find an empty house that wasn’t that way when we left.

- When we hear from the doctor “The best we can do is keep you comfortable.”

- Or when that phone call comes in late at night that you know means everything has changed.

- This is what it means to feel forsaken by God.  To feel alone and distant.  St. John of the Cross called it the dark night of the soul.

But a few things to note in this time.

- Jesus was only forsaken for a short time. He was still the beloved son who in suffering and dying God the Father was still well pleased.

- Never cast off forever, no matter how bad you feel.

- No matter how bad things get. No matter how many life changing phone calls come in, you are not forsaken forever.

- No matter how dark things get it will not stay dark forever.

- Despair is never final.  Sometimes our faith flickers and nearly vanishes, but despair is never our last word.

- Isaiah 50:10 – God is the light in our darkness

Jesus was made a curse for us.

- The full weight of our sin was put on the head of God the Son.  The weight of all our poor choices, indiscretions and all the things that disqualify us from donating blood was put on Jesus for us.

- This is called the Vicarious Sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

- Jesus was sacrificed as a one time and permanent end to the sins we have committed.

- the gospel message is that Christ lived the life we could not live and took the punishment we could not take to offer the hope we cannot resist. – Max Lucado.

- In this anguish and feeling the sin his life has never known he cries out.  He cries out what he knows.  He begins to quote scripture by singing a song.  Perhaps, if we were like Jesus and able to quote scripture in our deepest agony it would make all the difference.

- Some scholars believe that it is possible Jesus quoted the entire Psalm 22 before he died. I don’t know, you form your own opinion because it isn’t in scripture but what if he did?

Some insight into Psalm 22.

- Psalm 22

- Considered the whole gospel in 1 Psalm

- Writer/reader who feels abandoned by God.

- “My God, My God” repitition is odd in a lament but shows that author still holds the covenantal relationship from Exodus 6:7 “I am your God and you are my People”

- Sometimes this covenantal relationship is the only thing on which to hold on to in the utter darkness that has flooded over.

- This verse and Jesus’ words are not a loss of faith, or a broken relationship but a cry of disorientation as God’s familiar, protective presence is withdrawn and the enemy closes in.

- David always knew that it was possible for God to save, didn’t understand why God wasn’t saving.

- Why is the central question.

- Why becomes the central question for us. Every time we get stuck in construction, miss the promotion, or hear the words “Cancer” Why becomes our central question.

- Asking why is never a sin.

- To ask why is to doubt and for Jesus doubting God is okay. For us then, doubt becomes an imitation of the divine.  Some go so far as to say that on the cross God becomes an atheist.  I don’t know about that, but at the very least God the son is doubting, questioning, and talking back to God the father.

- If God can handle the questions and doubt from Jesus, then God can handle your doubt and your questions.

- The word for anguished groans is Shegah: “mIghty Roar” like a lion.  Not simply to call out or groan but to scream at God at the top of our lungs, to shake our fist and ask why.

- Our Savior is roaring from the cross with a broken heart.

- Verse 31 says that all will tell them what God has done, completed, made, or FINISHED.

- The Gospels pick this up and say: “IT IS FINISHED!”

- This verse is then asking God to be God the way God has always been, with mercy to the suffering and deliverance of the oppressed.  They want God’s will to be done which has always been mercy. They want God to act as God.

For all of humanity this was the only way for God to be a merciful God for the whole world.

There was a purpose for all this pain. There was a purpose for all of this.

- There was a purpose in the pain of Jesus on the cross.

- Colossians 1:20 declares that you are forgiven.  That you have been reconciled back to God.

- Whether you like it, believe it, or confess it.  You have been reconciled to God. And like Jesus we are forced to trust that there is a purpose behind the pain.

- There is a purpose in you pain.  I don’t know it is, only God knows and like Job we are forced to trust in the God who controls all things and is always merciful.

In baptism we are in each others pain. we can’t fix it but we say we are with them and they are with us.

 

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