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



People read this and make the assumption that somehow the Father forsook the Son while he hung upon the cross. The popular modern hymn How Deep The Father’s Love has it like this:

How great the pain of searing loss

The Father turns His face away

As wounds which mar the Chosen One

Bring many sons to glory.



The idea behind the assumption goes something like this: Jesus, the Son of God, hung on the cross to pay for our sins. “We owed a debt we could not pay, he paid a debt he did not owe…”; “Jesus paid it all…” Somehow, the thinking goes, Jesus took the punishment from the Father that we all deserved. And part of that punishment, part of that wretched condition which he took on himself for our sake, was to be abandoned by the Father. Forsaken. Left there on the cross alone. As if the Father had to be paid before he would forgive us! Never mind that this notion is completely the opposite of everything Jesus teaches us about forgiveness. Isn’t forgiveness the canceling of debt, not the insistence that “somebody has to pay”?

What kind of father does that? Not a good father. Laying aside for a moment the ontological impossibility of this happening (God the Father and God the Son are not two different beings, but “of one substance,” “of one being,” as the Nicene Creed declares; we can’t go divvying up the Holy Trinity as if God were three peas in a pod), where is the comfort in this idea? What kind of God abandons his Chosen One in his darkest hour?

But if the Father didn’t forsake the Son on that gloomy afternoon at Calvary, why does Jesus utter these words?

May I suggest that he prayed these words because he was praying the Psalms? Psalm 22 to be precise. Which begins - yes, you guessed it - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” David wrote this prayer-song at a time in his life when he felt everything and everyone was lined up against him. He felt abandoned, he felt surrounded by enemies, he felt like others were gloating over his condition. He felt like even God had abandoned him. The key word being felt.

No doubt there have been days (weeks? months?) when you felt alone, abandoned by friends, even abandoned by God. But the Psalm doesn’t stop there. Toward the end of David’s prayer (v. 24) the dark clouds split and the brilliant light of God’s presence shines through. David declares the truth, and not just how he feels:

For he has not despised or scorned

the suffering of the afflicted one;

he has not hidden his face from him

but has listened to his cry for help.

Jesus’ final words from the cross were, “It is finished.” There are lots of good commentaries on this phrase, and it is packed with meaning far beyond the three simple words, but allow me suggest that, whatever else these words mean, they show Jesus finishing up Psalm 22. It ends with these words: “He has done it!” What is the “it” that He has done? Let’s read the final verses and see the context:

27 All the ends of the earth

will remember and turn to the Lord,

and all the families of the nations

will bow down before him,

28 for dominion belongs to the Lord

and he rules over the nations. 29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;

all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—

those who cannot keep themselves alive.

30 Posterity will serve him;

future generations will be told about the Lord.

31 They will proclaim his righteousness,

declaring to a people yet unborn:

He has done it!

In the darkness of the moment David was close to despair, but the reality of God’s ever faithful presence broke through to him. Even when we feel like God isn’t there, he is. He will never leave us nor forsake us. And he never left or forsook Jesus.



And that my friends, is good news.