"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?"

Was Jesus forsaken by the Father while He was on the cross? From first glance, it may appear to be that way. You read Jesus cry out "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" and it seems to be so. I mean why else would He say that? But when you dig into this a little deeper...you might start to see something you may have never seen before. I believe the answer to this question will actually surprise you!

During Jesus' entire life, have you realized He never uses the word "God" but rather the word "Father" when it comes to addressing God? He would either say "My Father," "your Father," or "our Father" but never the word, "God." This is the case throughout His life UNTIL that classic moment on the cross when He says "my God,  my God, why have you forsaking me?" Now why would He suddenly change wording at this moment?

In order to answer this question, I want to lay a little ground work. During Jesus' time, it was the norm to know scriptures *by heart* because you didn't have Bibles sitting around in abundance like we do now. You would have to have the Psalms, Torah, and Prophets drilled into your memory. They also didn't have verses laid out like we do. You wouldn't say turn to Genesis 3:1 or 3:6. No, what they commonly did was (in public gatherings) you'd quote the first line of a passage. This is like us quoting the first line of lyrics to our favorite song we know from heart and then friends who also know the lyrics will pick right up and continue singing the rest of it (my wife and I love music and we do this quite often). This is similar to what they did. You would have the rest of the passage naturally going through your head.

This is where "my God, my God why have you forsaken me?" comes in. It is a quote from Psalms 22 and it is the first line of the passage. In the Hebrew mind, the Jews who knew this would have been like "I recognize this passage!" And this Psalm would have continued to play out in the back of their heads. What is so important about this (especially for us) is that we go through and read what the rest of this passage says (most of us, including myself, don't have this passage memorized yet). It would have been a real shocker to the Jews at the time. This Psalm is a prophecy detailing the sufferings of Christ and for them it was unfolding before their very own eyes! It details the exact words the crowds would mock at Him (vs. 7-8), about His hands and feet being pierced (vs. 16), lots being drawn for His garments and them being parted (vs. 18), etc. Fascinating. But once you get to verses 22-24 you will see just how "fascinating" this really gets. It begins to say, I will declare His name and everyone who revers Him, celebrate and praise Him because:

What do these verses say?  

He (the Father) has NOT despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one (Jesus).
He has NOT hidden His face from Him [not even for a moment] but has listened to His cry for help.

WHOA right? I think these verses say it all. This is definitely something to celebrate! With this in mind, let's paint a grand picture. While Jesus takes on our fallen humanity, He endures our sin, willingly and without retaliation takes our violent wrath and willingly allows His body to be beaten to shreds, and allows us to pierce Him and hang Him upon a cross, He cries out our cry of despair. Because in our fallen state, we were alienated from God *in our minds* and we had thought God had abandoned us and we had thought He had turned His back on us...but the Father speaks into the midst of utter brokenness with comfort that we are actually not alone! He never left Christ. He was IN Christ reconciling the whole world unto Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. Jeremiah says "you will look upon Yahweh (the Father), the One whom YOU have pierced." When we looked upon Jesus we looked upon the Father. When we pierced Jesus we pierced the Father! They are One and when you've seen the One, you've seen the other. God was IN Christ and WITH Christ on the cross, not turned up in the heavens somewhere with His back crossed. They were on the same team, rescuing us from sin, death, and the evil one.

No, the Father never left Jesus and He never will! And because Jesus represents us, we have an amazing and beautiful picture of the Father never leaving us even in our weakest and darkest moment! Even all sins throughout the world and throughout generations all on One man, Jesus, did not make God turn His back or forsake Him in the least. He continued to look upon us/Him in the same intensity of love in the midst of it all. And when we took the Creator of the universe, the One who gave us life and we murder Him...what does He do? He says "forgive them!" When we wound Him...what does He do? "He heals us!" God IS love. And boy, oh boy, in this does He certainly reveal Himself faithful and true! This brings tears to my eyes. What a God! What outrageous love!