“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
– Jesus from the cross (Mark 15:34)
Mark’s account of the crucifixion is the most chilling of all the Gospels. In order to convey the horror of Jesus’ death, Mark holds back information about Jesus’ other sayings on the cross and focuses only on the Jesus’ most vulnerable moment.
The ancient practice of crucifixion necessitated the word “excruciating” as a new adjective to describe the horrific pain. Historians point out how criminals had to struggle to lift themselves up for every breath, again and again ripping the skin where the nails had pierced the wrists and feet. Isaiah 53 indicates that the Suffering Servant was barely recognizable as human by the time they nailed Jesus to the cross. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ showed us in gory detail just how terrible crucifixion was.
Yet, strangely, the greatest torture for Jesus was not from the lacerations on his back or the nails and thorns, but from the agonizing loss of fellowship with his heavenly Father. As Jesus took the sins of the world on His shoulders, becoming sin for us, he experienced the true torment of hell – alienation from God the Father.
In that moment of anguish, Jesus cried out, “My God, my God – why have You forsaken Me?” It was the only time in all the Gospels that Jesus didn’t say “Father” when praying. Not only did his words express the sorrow of the soul’s feeling of separation from God, but they also pointed to Psalm 22, a psalm that pointed ahead to Jesus’ crucifixion. On the cross that day, Christ cried out, not about the abandonment of His disciples, but about the sense of abandonment from his Father.
Scripture teaches that those who do not put their trust in Christ as the payment for their sins will experience the horror of eternal separation from God. For the unsaved, it won’t be the abandonment of friends and family that will cause the heartache, but the abandonment of God the Father for all eternity.
The God-forsaken state is what we deserve, but that is why Jesus became God’s curse for us. His pain and suffering that dreadful day opened the door for us to experience beautiful fellowship with God for all eternity.
May we never forget: The Son of God became sin, so that sinners could become sons of God.
