Lenten Midweek #5: Glory of Golgotha
Christ Forsaken By God
Wednesday, April 9, 2025
Trinity Lutheran Church-Columbia, MO
St. Matthew 27:45-47
Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. (KJV)
The holy evangelists take considerable pains to record the details of Good Friday, even down to the hour. It was the sixth hour after midnight, or six o’clock in the morning when Pilate condemned Jesus to death; about the third hour after sunrise, 9 o’clock in the morning, when Jesus was nailed to the cross. It was about the sixth hour after sunrise, or noon, until about 3pm that darkness covered the land, the whole earth. This was no ordinary eclipse. An eclipse of this kind is only possible at the time of a new moon. Christ, however, died at the time of Passover, which was always celebrated during the full moon of the third month of the Hebrew calendar. The darkness on Good Friday was different. It was a miracle of Divine omnipotence, as when the sun stood still for half a day at the time of Joshua (Joshua 10), or the shadow going back ten degrees at the time of Hezekiah (Is. 38:8). This darkness was observed in Egypt and Rome and recorded in history. Earth was veiled in darkness; as if heaven and earth were horrified by the heinous crime committed by the Jews and Gentiles against the Lord of Glory; as if earth and the heavens, the sun the moon, the stars, mourned the death of the Son of God, their Creator and Preserver. Perhaps the darkness echoes the anguish of the soul the Crucified experienced when He cried, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”
When some of the Jews standing beneath the cross heard Jesus’ cry they said, “This man is calling Elijah.” In their blindness they misinterpreted Malachi’s prophecy concerning Elijah who was to go before the Messiah and prepare the way for Him. They thought it meant that the ancient Prophet bearing that name would return and announce the beginning of Christ’s glorious earthly kingdom and rule (Mal. 3:1; 4:5-6). They assumed Jesus was still living His delusion of grandeur; speaking the same hallucinations He had been for three years. They weren’t going to hold their breath to see if Elijah would actually come and take Jesus down from the cross. That was bitter scorn and vitriol and faithlessness; ignorance of their own Scripture. Christ had not called Elijah but called on God; for “Eli, Eli” means “My God, My God.”
None of us can fully comprehend the depth of our Lord’s cry. The cry places before us an abyss of depths so mysterious no mortal man can penetrate. Yet, if we pause reverently, pray to the Holy Spirit for light, and consult the Word of God, we will at least perceive that out of this hell, out of this dark abyss flows for the sinful children of men a fountain of comfort, blessing, and grace.
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” The Crucified one offers His anguish in the prophetic words of Psalm 22. This is the lament of the heart agitated unto death. It is evidence that the torments of the Cross tormented His soul, that He felt the pangs of temporal and eternal death in His innermost being. The eternal Word, the Second person of the Trinity, was truly made flesh, and in His flesh He really endured the sufferings of this mortal life and eternal death.
This was no ordinary suffering. Jesus spoke of being forsaken by God, and He meant just that. The Jews and Gentiles and all the powers of darkness conspired against Him. As Psalm 22 reveals He became, “a reproach among men and despised by the people” (v. 6). The wicked world begrudged the Son of God even having a place on earth, they hated the fact that He had visited our flesh in mercy and love; foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head (Matt. 8:20) except the back of His cross. The world cast Him off completely. He was forsaken by His friends and disciples. He had to cut the ties uniting Him with His mother, Mary, and John, the disciple He loved. The protection of the holy angels was withdrawn from Him. And now, He at last says He was forsaken even by God. God had given Him into the hands of the unrighteous and withdrawn from Him all fatherly love. Therefore Christ prays, “Why are You so far from saving Me, from the words of My groaning?” (Ps 22:1). God withdrew from Him the light of His favor, so that Jesus’ soul was without comfort, peace, and grace. God did not answer Him any longer causing Him finally to exclaim, “O My God, I cry by day but You do not answer, and by night but I find no rest” (Ps. 22:2).
For our part, we cannot form any adequate conception of this suffering. We cannot grasp what it means to be forsaken by God. Such sorrow is not known in this life. No other man was ever forsaken by God in the truest and fullest sense of the word. Whatever lives and moves on earth lives and moves and has its being in God (Acts 17:28). God’s countenance of grace shines on earth. The light of eternal love still earnestly seeks the lost children of men, calls and invites them to return. God is favorably disposed toward men. It is true that the proud harden their hearts against this love and grace and God finally gives them over to their obduracy, withdrawing His Spirit and grace from them. May we preserved from that! But all men, as long as they are living on earth as long as heaven and earth endure, all men are still within reach of the goodness of God. For God makes His sun to rise on the evil and sends rain on the just and the unjust (Matt. 5:45). When God fully and completely withdraws from a creature not only the light of His grace and mercy, but also of His goodness and benevolence, that is a punishment which reaches beyond earth and time, one which transcends the understanding of all men. That withdrawal is the torment of hell, death, and eternal death. For those who are in hell, there is only wrath and terror, judgment and fiery indignation. Forsaken by God: that is the status of the devil and his accursed spirits and of condemned men. That is the outer darkness, the weeping and gnashing of teeth. Our imagination is too dull and weak to enable us to even conceive of what eternal death means. God grant that none of us may learn of this! To be forsaken by God is an unspeakable torment, even for depraved and sinful men, the worst of the worst. The damned in hell struggle, in vain, to escape.
But Jesus on Golgotha spoke of being forsaken when He was a sinless, holy man. He had done nothing wrong. He had done, spoken, thought, and willed only what was godly and holy. He had been perfectly obedient to the Father, obedient to the point of death. The only verbiage we have to even vaguely understand our Lord’s plight is HR speak “the Father’s actions and attitude were inconsistent with His character.” Yet the supremely righteous and God-man was now forsaken by Him whom He had served and trusted in faithfully all His life. The impact that this must have had on His humble and holy nature, on His pure and consecrated soul, is beyond His understanding. Now, consider further that He who was forsaken was the infinitely more righteous man, more than merely a man after God’s own heart: this Man was God’s Son! God “spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all;” He gave Him up to the bitter anguish and death of the Cross and to the pangs of eternal death. The holy Son of God, the brightness of His glory, the express image of His Person, living among unclean spirits, in our home—this world which echoes curses and blasphemies; the Son of the Highest in the depths of hell. The only begotten Son of the Father, rejected and cast down, struck down by perfect eternal justice and wrath which burns down to the lowest hell. We cannot even imagine the humiliation! Words completely fail.
In the final analysis we simply must confess we do not and cannot know what kind of suffering this was. All that we can do is simply declare that the eternal Son of God was truly forsaken by His eternal Father and in the fullest sense of the word, and then affirm that it is true because Christ Himself speaks it.
Jesus cries out, “Why, why, have You forsaken me?” He Himself could not grasp how it was possible for God to forsake His Only-Begotten. He does not ask this secretly knowing that He is Divine, knowing that it will be okay. He puts aside His divinity completely. He asks this according to His human nature, as a child loves His Father. The fact that Christ asks “why” opens up to us new depths of suffering and mystery. In the terrible hour, the connection between His sufferings and His life, all eternity, the purpose of His incarnation, the plan of salvation, faded from His consciousness. In that moment, the eternal counsel of God was veiled, as it had been in Gethsemane when He implored of God, if it were His will, to let the cup of suffering pass from Him. Again we say: what depth of humiliation! The incarnate God, eternal power and majesty, hangs on cursed tree, asking, “Why? Why all of this?”
Yet even in His deepest Humiliation He did not deny Himself. He groaned and cried out forsaken, but He did not despair. He had absolutely no sympathy for the devil even for the moment. He did not commiserate with the powers of darkness. Even though He shared in knowing what hell was, He had nothing in common with satan or the condemned spirits, except the torments which He shared with them in that dark hour. He remained blameless and holy. No hatred for His Father or His murderers crossed His lips; He opened not His mouth. No angry or unholy thoughts entered His soul.
He spoke to God out of the depths, making even His question and lament a true prayer. New depths of God’s being are opened to us here. Christ, although forsaken by God, clung to God as His Father. In this way, He is the only one who has ever offered a pleasing and acceptable prayer from hell. Even though God was angry with Him, He still called on His Father. Jesus addressed God as Father even when God’s almighty and eternal wrath pressed upon His soul; in prayer He was assuring His Father of His love and loyalty. He did not let go even though He had nothing to hold on to. That was His perfect and unique obedience and unparalleled love and faithfulness far beyond human understanding. Only He who shared the essence of the Father could speak and pray in this way.
God truly forsook His Son, cast him into hell, caused Him to endure eternal wrath. But the Son of God and the bond between Father and Son were stronger than death and hell. At the voice of the Son’s prayer, “My God, My God!” hell must become silent; Satan was overcome, the malice, the enmity, the blasphemy, the fury, the weeping and gnashing of teeth—all the enemies of God were disarmed. Hell was overcome by this prayer. For a few hours Jesus was forsaken by God but He needed taste eternal wrath and death to overcome it forever. The Son who is over all mocks hell, and forever destroys and conquers death [basically giving hell the middle finger!]. With the cry “My God, My God!” Christ swung Himself up from hell, trampled Satan, and drew closer to the heart of the Father.
Out of this abyss and from this prayer flow grace, comfort, and peace for us poor sinners.
He entered our flesh, He appeared in the midst of His brothers. He is surrounded by the descendants of Adam, surrounded by men destined to die. He took the place of His brothers in the flesh. He became the Substitute of men. He atoned for our sins because He restored to us what He did not take away: life, eternal life, life to the full.
When Adam turned away from the living God, he turned away from the God who had honored him and magnificently adorned him by creating him in His image, in holiness, by giving him a body and soul. This is the sin of men: we did not glorify God as God, but “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles…Foolish and proud hearts were darkened (Rom. 1:23). This is the sin of Israel, the people of God, to whom God says: “They have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jer. 2:13). This is our sin: we have forsaken the living God. We think Him dead and powerless. By nature we are estranged from God, without knowledge of Him, without fear and love of Him, without trust in Him. By nature we are at enmity with God and hate Him. If we look at ourselves and our conduct, we must confess that we are ungodly people. We are ungrateful for the love and care and grace of our God. We pay no attention to Him, and rest in our own talents and abilities, and the successes of our nation. We are a people of ingratitude. How easily and quickly we turn our eyes and thoughts away from the Lord and His Word. In the hour of trouble we forget Him and place our comfort and solace in our worries and anxieties. We hope our obsessing and staying busy will save us. In temptation we permit ourselves to be blinded and deceived by perishable treasures; we end up trusting in outcomes that we have no power to actually materialize or realize in life. This is the sin of us all. Truly, we have deserved to be rejected by God, to be cast off from His presence into outer darkness, beyond the reach of His goodness and love. But Christ our wonderful Savior, the obedient and faithful Servant, the beloved Son of God, took our place and suffered our punishment of eternal death, He entered prison for us. Our chastisement was upon Him that we might have peace.
Having suffered all, He was released from prison and judgment. Thus He testified in Psalm 22:44, “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.” With the cry “My God, My God” He was heard in the throne room of heaven, and Christ overcame wrath, hell, damnation. He did this for our sake. He is our Savior and Redeemer. He redeemed us from death and the devil—from eternal death, from the pain and torment of hell.
There are interpreters of the Bible, ancient and modern, who deny that Christ actually suffered the punishments and torments of hell. They suggest the Holy Trinity pulled a slight of hand or a dirty trick, that the Divine Nature of Christ was immune from experiencing His own wrath and so it only looked like God died. Or, they suggest the possibility of God’s own Son in hell is such an offensive idea it must be denied outright. The problem with these heresies, whenever or however they come, is that they rob Christians of the comfort that is theirs through the Gospel; that Christ suffered and was forsaken for us. Because Christ suffered for us, we have been redeemed from the last, worst, and most bitter consequence of our sins. If Christ did not truly suffer, hell still would have a rightful claim on us. We believe what the Scripture presents so clearly to us even though we cannot comprehend it: Christ, God’s Son, drank the cup of eternal wrath so we cold drink the cup of blessing. Because Christ our Lord and Savior, the King of Israel, was forsaken by God, we know, believe, and rejoice that God will not forsake us or reject us in eternity. Because Christ descended into hell, He left our sins there when He rose again on the Third Day. Because He is exalted to the right hand of the Father and lives and reigns to all eternity we exult with endless confidence and deathless strain: “O death where if your sting? Hell, where is your victory?” Death for the Chrisitan is no longer the entrance to the second death, but the portal to eternal life, the assurance our sins are forgiven—forever.
Even devout Christians may sometimes exclaim, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” Sometimes they are tempted to think God has forgotten them, because they do not feel His grace and comfort in their hearts. But they do not murmur against God. They, too, cry, “My God, My God. Jesus, dear Lord and Savior, have mercy upon me!” And they soon realize that their cries and prayers find a hearing. It is not long before they again see the light of God illuminating the darkness. Even though cross and trial grieve us and sometimes seem to hide God’s face and favor from us, we believe and are confident He remembers us. He will not forget His promise, so great is His love. Even in His dying He remembered the thief next to Him. Surely he will not forget you.
What the godly experience in the hours of temptation and trial is similar to what Christ experienced. However, we remember Christ was truly forsaken. When Christians complain of being forsaken, that is mere delusion or our imagination getting the best of us. We are not really forsaken. Over the chasm of our sufferings, when God’s love and comfort seems out of reach, the eternal love of God still shines, God’s disposition toward us is favorable because of the Son. He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself (1 Tim. 2:13). But because we are weak we must rely on the Holy Spirit to enlighten, encourage, and strengthen us. And yet, it is especially in the face hell and terrors, trials and temptations, that Christians truly glory and even find comfort. For when He seems furthest away, then He is truly near and reveals Himself for our good. “I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, not principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). Amen.