On Good Friday Christians gathered in churches all over the world and reviewed the story of the Crucifixion of Christ. If it were not for the fact that we know the story and have heard it so many times, we would certainly be horrified at the violence and injustice of it all. But it’s a harmless pageant now, a formula like the lyrics of an anthem. “We stand on guard” doesn’t make us think of real danger, killing and dying; “bombs bursting in air” conjures up no real bombs with flesh and blood casualties, and “they crucified him” is simply the next and obvious line in the story. And then we hear, or read, those few lines that there’s just no getting used to.
At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"-which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Mark 15:33-34
What on earth is this about? Did God really abandon his own son at the time of his deepest need? Is this really the act of child abuse the New Atheist accuse us of delighting in? Is the God we worship really the heartless monster they say he is?
There are preachers who passionately insist that Jesus really was abandoned by God on the cross. They proclaim that God, being utterly holy, cannot look upon sin. So, when “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,...” Corinthians 5:21, he withdrew from Jesus because, in his holiness, he could not associate with sin.
There are only two things I can say in favour of such an interpretation. First, it is a clever bit of theological gymnastics if all you want to do is explain away a difficult passage, and don’t care what you end up saying about God. And second, it should be outrageous enough to awaken even the most inattentive churchgoer from his repetition induced stupor.
The notion that God is unwilling or unable to look upon, touch, handle, or wade through an ocean of sin and filth for the sake of any of his children, let alone his only Son, is an appalling slander. And, what is more, it does violence to the entire story of the incarnation. The Good Shepherd is a good shepherd precisely because he is willing and able to go to when the sheep has gone in order to rescue it. The father of the prodigal son is a godly father precisely because he runs to his son and embraces him pig-stained clothes and all. And the incarnation is “God with us” sin-sick and wretched though we are.
So, what am I saying? Was Jesus just depressed, confused or mistaken when he cried out in this way?
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is not a simple cry of pain – though it is certainly that – but the first line, and title of Psalm 22 in the Hebrew Bible. I believe Mathew and Mark may actually be saying that, with his final breaths, Jesus recited the whole psalm. But even if not, he was surely making reference to the psalm in it’s entirety. Now, if we consider the psalm, we find that it begins with the agonizing cry of one who feels utterly abandoned by God, but continues with the declaration:
For he has not despised or disdained
the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help. Psalm 22:24
A few weeks ago I watched a wonderful and inspiring interview with an American poet named Christian Wiman. (Click on the link and then on the Christian Wiman video. It is profoundly worth watching.) At one point he talks about his cancer and the suffering he has experienced through it. He talks of how excruciating pain “islands” you from everyone and everything. But though he is driven to faithlessness and utter despair by the event of suffering, reflection upon the experience, he says, has become for him an experience of the presence of God.
I believe it is this “islanding” and finding, in reflection, an experience of God, that Psalm 22, and Christ's reference to it, are about. The incarnation is God entering into all that is human and earthly, including the island (abandonment, forsakenness, and faithlessness) of suffering.
God did not abandon, forsake or break faith with Jesus on the cross, he entered into these experiences of suffering with all of us. Indeed, God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,... 2 Corinthians 5:19
2 comments:
Maybe it's just like you say. A whole poem, or a bit of a poem. I really have a hard time imagining it, though.
The thing is, and not to suggest that anything in my life has ever approached the horrors of being crucified, but I know this cry. This is darkest hour stuff. 2 in the morning and often accompanied by language not thought to be suitable to conversations with God. This is the moment before God shows up, like a good parent at the bedside of a tear stained, nightmare ridden, terrified two year old, and lifts you up and out. Nothing is changed and everything is different This is the corner.
If he was subject to the same frailties as the rest of us why would we reel back in horror because he momentarily lost his certainty? If seems to me that this is more about fear and pain and lostness, than about anything God is or isn't doing.
And yes, I can tell you with total certainty that there is no sin, no sewer horrific enough to keep God out. He waded through a river of ugly to come and get me.
Thanks Mary.
In my experience people who are steeped in Scripture often turn to Scripture when facing death or great suffering, so I have no trouble imagining that Jesus was doing just that. My point however, is in keeping with yours. Psalm 22 is the cry of one who, in pain and suffering, has lost his trust and certainty, and this is what Jesus is going through. The gospel writers are at pains to tell us that Jesus struggled for trust in God just as we do. We find him in prayer, in doubt, in confusion, and finally (or almost finally) in despair. In the end he does commit himself into his Father’s hands, but this is a final act of faith.
If he was truly human he had no inside track that made it easy for him. But at no time, even for a moment or a millisecond, did God abandon Jesus.
Post a Comment