We are entering the last days of Lent. Holy Week is soon to be upon us! As such, we’ll be hearing the story of Christ’s crucifixion a few times over these next few days. While I know that our wonderful Evangelization Committee has been bringing you articles featuring the “last seven words of Christ,” I’d like to take a moment to share some thoughts on one of the most discussed utterances of Jesus: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). Among those last “seven words,” these, in particular, are the ones that people ask me about most often. While our space won’t allow for a “deep dive” on the topic, I hope that what I share causes you to reconsider the idea that Jesus was expressing a moment of weakness and loss of hope, but also that it piques your interest and causes you to seek more information.
To start: We hear so many different theories on how Jesus was feeling at that moment upon the cross, and how that feeling must have been despair. People will say that it was one of Jesus’ very “human” moments. What they may not know, however, is that Jesus words were taken from the opening line of Psalm 22. That psalm contains verses that must have been foremost in Jesus’ mind:
• “I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint” (v.14).
• “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; thou dost lay me in the dust of death” (v.15).
• “Dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet” (v.16).
• “They divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots” (v.18).
These descriptions of persecution and suffering are followed, however, by words expressing hope for deliverance from that trial:
“But thou, O Lord, be not far off! O thou my help, hasten to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen! . . . For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; and he has not hid his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (vv.19-21, 24).
Going further, the psalm ends with words of praise to God, and thanksgiving for deliverance not yet come:
“All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. . . Posterity shall serve him; men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, that he has wrought it” (vv. 27, 30).
When seen in its entirety, all of a sudden, several points come to mind. First of all, these are words from scripture that are on Jesus’ lips, not a random cry of despair. Next, the words of the entire psalm would have been known by Jesus, and he would have known that their focus and point of culmination were praise to God, and a proclamation of deliverance. We’d be shortsighted if we didn’t connect the deliverance that was taking place, in the very act of Jesus’ crucifixion, just as Jesus brought them to mind. Crazy, good! Right?
For more information see a great article by Karlo Broussard (at Catholic.com) entitled, “Did the Father Forsake Jesus?”