Sermons

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“I'm Forgiven Because You Were Forsaken”
April 6, 2003
Associate Pastor Lynne Baab
5th in a sermon series on the Seven Last Words of Christ
Matthew 27:45-56

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

While I read the passage, I want to make some comments on specific verses.

Verse 45: “From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until 3 in the afternoon.” The gospel of Mark tells us that Jesus was crucified at 9 a.m. and died at 3 p.m. For half of the time he hung on the cross, darkness covered the scene. We don’t know if it was something natural like an eclipse or if it was something supernatural. But either way, it spoke to the people that something different was happening. In the Old Testament, in numerous places, the Day of the Lord is described as being a time of darkness. Darkness is also a symbol of mourning and sadness. Another time note: in the temple worship, a lamb was brought in every day at 3 p.m. to be sacrificed.

Verse 46: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is a direct quotation from the first verse of Psalm 22. I want to particularly mention that psalm to you, because there are so many details in it that parallel the story of Jesus’ crucifixion. The psalm talks about people casting lots for clothing, being mocked and stared at and gloated over. Even more significant to me is the power of the mood of the psalm, full of groaning. “I am poured out like water,” verse 14 says. The psalm ends up praising God. I believe that when Jesus quotes the psalm, he wants us to bring to mind the whole psalm. As you prepare for Easter this year, I encourage you to read Psalm 22 and let it sink into your soul.

Verse 51: “The curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” The curtain mentioned here was most likely the curtain between the “holy place” and the “Holy of Holies” in the temple. The Jews believed that God’s presence was in the Holy of Holies. That’s where the Ark of the Covenant was placed. No one could enter the Holy of Holies except the High Priest, and he could enter only once a year, on the Day of Atonement, when he would bring in some blood from a sacrifice and sprinkle it on the Ark of the Covenant.

When I was in my twenties, I used to like to make Christmas cards. I had a favorite verse that I would put on Christmas cards. It’s from 2 Corinthians 8:9, and it goes like this:

“Do you remember the generosity of Jesus Christ, the Lord of us all? Though he was rich beyond our telling, yet he became poor for your sakes, so that through his poverty, you might be made rich.”

I want to focus our sermon today on Jesus’ words from the cross,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

To understand the forsakenness that Jesus experienced, we need to start with what happened when Jesus came to earth.

He gave up the riches of heaven and became poor, so that we might become rich. The opening hymn we sang today echoes this idea: “Thou didst leave thy throne and thy kingly crown when thou camest to earth for me.”

Luci Shaw has a wonderful poem, called Mary’s Song, that expresses the amazing irony that the maker of the universe would limit himself to human flesh. In the poem, Mary is talking about the baby Jesus. She says:

“Quiet he lies, whose vigor hurled a universe. . . .
Breath, mouth, ears, eyes, he is curtailed who overflowed all skies, all years.
Older than eternity, now he is new.
Now native to earth as I am, nailed
To my poor planet, caught that I might be free,
Blind in my womb to know my darkness ended
Brought to this birth for me to be new-born,
And for him to see me mended,
I must see him torn.”

Jesus gave up so much to come to this earth. We can only imagine the splendor of heaven. We can only imagine what it’s like to be outside of time and space. But we do know he took on great limits, the limits of human flesh, to come to our earth.

However, there is one thing he didn’t give up. Throughout eternity, he experienced a close intimacy with his Father, and that intimacy continues on earth. Over and over we see Jesus going off to pray, to spend time with the One who sent him. Over and over he says that he speaks only what he hears and that he does only what his Father tells him to do.

It is only at Jesus’ death that his intimate relationship with the Father has to be broken. The Apostle’s Creed tells us that Jesus descended into hell after he died. In Hebrews 2 we read:

“Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death.”

Jesus had to enter the realm of death, hell, in order to conquer death and sin and evil and defeat the power of the devil.

We no longer have to fear death. We can anticipate dying and going to heaven. But Jesus didn’t get to do that. The innocent one had to suffer the death of a sinner in order to do the work that he had come to earth to do.

As Jesus hangs on the cross, only moments away from dying, he says,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

As death approaches, God the Father is withdrawing his intimate communion from Jesus, who is going to experience total separation for two days. This is the high cost of the incarnation. This is the most amazing aspect of Jesus coming to earth for us. Yes, he left the riches of heaven to come to our earth. But much more painful for him, he left the intimacy of closeness with his father to take on hell and the power of death, and break it open for us. Truly, we have received endless gifts from Jesus, grace upon grace, because he was willing to be forsaken for us.

This feeling of forsakenness by God is very familiar to me, because of my own experiences and because I have the privilege of hearing so many stories from members of our congregation. Not long ago I was sitting with a couple who had lost a child. They felt abandoned by God. “Why didn’t God protect her?” they asked. “We prayed that God would keep her safe and he didn’t? Where is God in this?”

I have heard some of the same concerns from people who are out of work. “I apply for job after job. I pray hard before every interview. I feel like God is far away and doesn’t care.”

Some single people have told me that they feel like God has overlooked them. Couples who want to have a child but can’t seem to get pregnant often feel that God has forsaken them. Some of you have health issues yourselves or in family members which have totally changed your life for the worse. It’s easy to wonder where God is, to feel abandoned by God.

You may have some area of your life that very few people know about that makes you feel forsaken by God. And for those of you who were born with sunny dispositions, I know that you know other people who struggle with feeling forsaken by God.

I have experienced this sense of forsakenness by God in depression. In a couple of months, I will hit the 24th anniversary of my first bout with depression. So many people experience relief through antidepressant drugs, but I have a physiological glitch that makes it very difficult for me to take drugs. So I do everything possible in the non-drug arena to stay emotionally healthy: I exercise regularly, I don’t drink alcohol, I try to keep the stress level in my life down at a reasonable level, and I still see a therapist regularly. All of that helps, and I have long stretches of time without depression.

But it does sometimes come back. For me, almost by definition, depression means feeling abandoned and forsaken by God. The inner pain is so real and so far from what I believe God intends for us. But as the years have gone by, there is a small change in the way I experience depression. More often now, I have brief moments of sensing Jesus’ companionship in the darkness. It’s as if he is beside me, whispering in my ear, “I know forsakenness. I am with you. You are not alone.” And he also whispers, “Remember what came after my own forsakenness. Resurrection. You will experience resurrection, too.”

Dale Brunner, while talking about this passage, made a wonderful statement about Jesus. Brunner said,

Jesus took on
our abandonment
our questions
our feeling of God’s betrayal
our most agonizing experiences
and still believed in the God he could not feel and was tempted to disbelieve.

I want to go back to the issue of the curtain in the temple being torn in two. The Holy of Holies, the innermost part of the temple, was where the presence of God dwelled. The High Priest was the only person who could enter there, and he could go there only once a year with some blood from a sacrifice in his hand. When the curtain tore, it was a physical manifestation of the reality that the Old Testament sacrificial system was now finished. There was no need any longer for sacrifices and sprinkling blood. Jesus, in being willing to be forsaken by God, to go into hell, had broken the power of sin and death. We sing, “I’m forgiven because you were forsaken,” and that is absolutely true. There is no longer a need for sacrifices. We have forgiveness through Jesus’ death for us.

The tearing of the curtain also manifests for us the truth that God is no longer confined in a small room behind a curtain. Anyone can enter into his presence now, not just one person once a year. And God is free to come out of that room. We know that seven weeks after Jesus’ death and resurrection, God will send the Holy Spirit to us. God isn’t in a small room anymore, God lives inside each Christian through the Holy Spirit. God dwells among us, in us as individuals and in us as a body.

When I experience Jesus’ companionship in my dark times, it is the Holy Spirit who makes Jesus present to me. When I experience Jesus whispering words of comfort and hope in my ears, it is the Spirit of Jesus who makes that possible. Whenever I know I’m not alone in dark times, when I can in some small way feel that Jesus understands forsakenness because he was forsaken, it is the Holy Spirit who makes that awareness possible.

Because Jesus was willing to be forsaken, to leave his intimacy with the One who sent him, we receive gifts of forgiveness, companionship, comfort, and so much more. From his fullness we have received grace upon grace.