Why have you forsaken me

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34)

One of the first questions I had when I first returned to the Church was why did Christ say this on the Cross? To me, it almost sounded like he did not trust God, that he thought God abandoned Him. It seemed so odd. I mean Christ knew this was going to happen. How many times did he allude to it when speaking to the disciples? I just didn’t understand what this meant and so, like I have always done since I was a little girl, I asked my dad.

My dad, who is also Catholic, responded to me in the way that anyone would who had been brought up in the Baptist Church; he told me to pull out my Bible. At his instruction, I turned to Psalm 22 and read it all the way through. After this, he asked me to answer my own question. And so I ask the same of you. Read Psalm 22 (posted below from the New Living Translation) and contemplate what Christ meant when he said, “My God, my God, why have you Forsaken me?”

Psalms 22

My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me?
Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help?

Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.
Yet you are holy. The praises of Israel surround your throne.

Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them.
You heard their cries for help and saved them.
They put their trust in you and were never disappointed.

But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all!
Everyone who sees me mocks me.
They sneer and shake their heads, saying,
Is this the one who relies on the LORD? Then let the LORD save him!
If the LORD loves him so much, let the LORD rescue him!"

Yet you brought me safely from my mother's womb
and led me to trust you when I was a nursing infant.
I was thrust upon you at my birth.
You have been my God from the moment I was born.

Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near,
and no one else can help me.
My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls;
fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in!
Like roaring lions attacking their prey,
they come at me with open mouths.

My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax, melting within me.
My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay.
My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead.

My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs;
an evil gang closes in on me.
They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count every bone in my body.
My enemies stare at me and gloat.
They divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments.

O LORD, do not stay away!
You are my strength; come quickly to my aid!
Rescue me from a violent death; spare my precious life from these dogs.
Snatch me from the lions' jaws,
and from the horns of these wild oxen.
Then I will declare the wonder of your name to my brothers and sisters.
I will praise you among all your people.

Praise the LORD, all you who fear him!
Honor him, all you descendants of Jacob!
Show him reverence, all you descendants of Israel!
For he has not ignored the suffering of the needy.
He has not turned and walked away.
He has listened to their cries for help.

I will praise you among all the people;
I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship you.
The poor will eat and be satisfied.
All who seek the LORD will praise him.
Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.

The whole earth will acknowledge the LORD and return to him.
People from every nation will bow down before him.
For the LORD is king! He rules all the nations.
Let the rich of the earth feast and worship.
Let all mortals -- those born to die -- bow down in his presence.

Future generations will also serve him.
Our children will hear about the wonders of the Lord.
His righteous acts will be told to those yet unborn.
They will hear about everything he has done.

So, what did Jesus mean when He quoted the first line of this psalm while on the Cross? Well, to understand that, it is important to understand the Jews of that time. Do not forget that Jesus Christ was Jewish. He was raised a Jew within a Jewish Culture. As a Jew, like our Gospel writers and the other Jews of the time period, He would have been very familiar with the Old Testament.

It was common then to quote Psalms by simply saying the first line of the Psalm. So when Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He is not asking God where He went? He is not telling us that God has abandoned Him. No, quite to the contrary; He is telling us that He is the one foretold in Psalm 22. The people who heard Him would have understood what He meant as they would also have been very familiar with the Psalms. But if Christ did not say this because He felt abandoned, what is the significance?

Christ is alluding to what will come – the fulfillment of God’s Promise to us as declared in Psalm 22.

“For he has not ignored the suffering of the needy.
He has not turned and walked away.
He has listened to their cries for help.

I will praise you among all the people;
I will fulfill my vows in the presence of those who worship you.
The poor will eat and be satisfied.
All who seek the LORD will praise him.
Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy.

When Jesus speaks His Fourth Saying, He is promising us the great joy that will come to us when we fully realize the Redemptive Power of His Sacrifice. We may mock Him and jeer at Him during His final moments, but He knows that the Father’s Love is transformative and infinite. When He has fulfilled the prophecy, we will turn to the Father, The Son and the Spirit and we will praise Him with everlasting Joy.

Who ever thought such a seemingly sad statement made by a dying man in agony while nailed to cross, referred not His own predicament but to the fate of those who Crucified Him, you and me. And it was not filled with spite or hatred for what we did. No, as the first Saying tells us, even on the Cross, He pleads for the Father to forgive us. Again, Christ tells us that have the Father’s love, that our suffering can be in solidarity with His, our Death can be with Him so that His Resurrection can be ours too. Even on the Cross, Jesus displays such infinite Love.

Sweet Jesus! For how many ages have you hung upon your Cross
and still men pass you by and ignore you?

How often have I passed by you,
heedless of your great Sorrow, your many Wounds, your infinite Love?

How often have I stood before you, not to comfort and console you,
but to add to your Sorrows, to deepen your Wounds, to spurn your Love?

You have stretched forth your Hands to raise me up,
and I have taken those Hands and bent them back on the Cross.

You have loved me with an infinite love,
and I have taken advantage of that love to sin the more against you.

My ingratitude has pierced your Sacred Heart,
and your Heart responds only with an outpouring of your Love in your Precious Blood.

Lamb of God Who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on me.

Amen