My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

In the days following September 11, 2001, I remember hearing people around me ask “Why did God let this happen?”  We saw people on television asking the same question, or maybe a different version of this question:  “Where was God when this happened?” We watched with horror as the towers fell, smoked filled an entire city and people ran for their lives, and people asked “What kind of God lets this happen?”   Many of us were quick to jump to the conclusion that God was behind the whole scenario, to believe that it was somehow God’s fault, or that God stood by and watched, carelessly allowing people to die. 

The little orphan Annie never gave up hope that her parents would come back for her, clutching the half-locket they had left for her.  She just knew that someday, somehow, her parents would come back for her. We, on the other hand, hardly ever trust with such reckless abandon. We have trouble trusting, we have trouble believing, we have been conditioned to be this way. In our lives, our surroundings and relationships have created an inability to trust unfailingly.  So is it any wonder we won’t even trust God unfailingly?  We are sometimes able to trust God conditionally, when it’s convenient for us, but as soon as something horrendous happens and we don’t understand it, we are so quick to pin it on God.  Now the question is:  Did Jesus really mean his question? Did Jesus really think that God had left his side? 

The people who mock Jesus, for example.  That could ring a few bells for you.  In that same psalm, Psalm 22, David said in verse 7-8: “All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: ‘He trusts in the LORD; let the LORD rescue him. Let God deliver him, since he delights in God.’”   This Psalm really sets the tone for much of what we see in Matthew’s tale: not only those first words that Jesus cries out, but now we see that David endured much of the same mocking and challenging. 

We also see a very similar picture painted to the one we saw forty days ago, when Jesus was in the desert and the devil tempted and challenged him.  Matthew’s story tells of the passers-by saying "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!"  (Matt. 27:40).  In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself" We can almost hear an echo of the devil saying to Jesus in the desert: “If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down” (Matt 4:6).  People loved to taunt Jesus, it seems, asking him to prove that his faith is founded. Asking him to show that God really is with him. But each time, Jesus refuses to do such a thing.  When responding to the devil, he responds with a polite, “no thanks.  The scripture tells me not to test my God.” (Matt. 4:7)  Jesus is faithful to the scripture he knows and has lived by, certain that that scripture will stand for him each time.

We might also see some interesting intersections of stories when we look at the three hours of darkness.  Some commentators would suggest that this darkness represents Jesus’ abandonment, but that the abandonment and death were necessary in order to create the new covenant Jesus helped establish.  I would say instead that the three hours of darkness, while on the surface possibly did signify abandonment to Jesus, instead show us a glimpse of the hope to come.  There were three hours of darkness while Jesus hung on the cross and there were three days of darkness after Jesus died. Those three days were filled with darkness and mourning but led only to an amazing glimpse of the hope of the resurrection. The three days ended when it was found that death had not held Jesus, but instead, that life was in him again. 

With all this déjà vu and quoting, it’s no wonder Jesus seems confused.  I have a hard time believing he really was confused though.  Some writers claimed a confusion on Jesus’ part as to why he had to die. His call of “why have you forsaken me?” seems to show that he truly is wondering. But did Jesus not tell others of what was to come? Didn’t he tell people that he would have to die?  In Matthew 16: 21, we learn that “Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed, and on the third day be raised.”  He warns people a second time, and a third time, and again at the Passover dinner which became his last supper (Matt. 17:22-23, Matt.20:17-19, Matt. 20-30).  With all of his warnings to others, how could Jesus himself have been surprised?  How could he possibly be confused about why he was dying and why God was “allowing” this to happen, when he had clearly understood how his life would end for quite some time?

Instead of confusion, I suggest that Jesus is seeking.  Instead of a feeling of “why have you abandoned me?” I suggest that Jesus is calling out and asking God to be near. 

Deathbed experiences are somewhat unsubstantiated and we usually only learn of them through fictional movies and tales.  One constant in those tales is that people frequently see or call out to their loved ones: their friends and family.  Some of the fictional tales suggest that a dying person sees a montage of events and memories from their lives as they lay dying.  Often, people see some type of figure who has come to help them cross over to the side of death.  Sometimes that figure is a religious character or sometimes it is that loved one to whom one called.  No one knows for certain whether any of this really happens.  But we do read that in this moment, Jesus’ moment on the verge of death, Jesus calls out to his God, not to anyone else.  Throughout his life, Jesus had maintained that he and his father were together in this life.  Why would his death moment be any different?  Jesus calling out to God shows that he still believes God is there with him, for why else would he call to God?  If God had left, why call?  In anguish, these words escape.  “Why have you forsaken me?” but they are addressed to the God and parental figure who he knows is still present.

A baby’s first instinct is to cry out for Mommy or Daddy when she has fallen down.  She reaches for them when she can’t sleep and runs to find them when someone steals her toy.  As teenagers, we don’t like to admit it, but our instinct is still to call for help.  Deep down, when we’re pressing the boundaries and rebelling, we want to call out, “Mom, help me.” We would never admit that and instead, we try to make it seem as though we have no need for our parents. In times of desperation, though, the teenager will call for his parents to help.  But instead of asking for help, it may come out as “why aren’t you helping me?” or “Why didn’t you already know that I needed help?”  And perhaps that is what Jesus is asking.  Perhaps, while Jesus knows that God is there, his anguish and desperation at his physical agony allowed the words to slip out as “where are you?  Why aren’t you helping me?”