Why Have You Forsaken me?

Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These worlds are found both in Matthew 27 and Mark 15. This is the only one of the final seven phrases that Jesus said on the cross which appears more than once throughout the Gospels. It is said that while Jesus was on dying on the cross he spoke the entirety of the book of Psalm. I will not delve into that belief; I will just focus on what was recorded in the Gospels. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is originally from Psalm 22. There have been many theologians that have tried to make sense of what Jesus is doing here or what the Gospel writers are doing by quoting this specific Psalm.  The first thought that comes to my mind is Jesus wanted those around him to take note and think of Psalm 22 and Psalm in its entirety. They would see that Jesus is the fulfillment of the prophecies that are found in the book of Psalm. I want to take it a little deeper though. In his moment of death Christ Jesus is taking on the sins of mankind. In this moment Christ Jesus is no longer perfect and in him is sin. In him is our sin. It makes sense here that he feels forsaken by the Father. God hates sin and in this moment Jesus is sin. It makes sense that in this specific moment that he feels separation from the other parts of the Trinity. This separation though is only temporary. Jesus takes on our sins and receives our punishment, which is death. In his death he defeats sin.

How can we apply this to our lives? How can we apply this in our political world? Sometimes it’s hard to take something you read from the Bible and try to figure out how to apply it in your own life. I think this is one of those times. But here goes nothing…

We are all sinful beings. We all have the old Adam inside of us. We are conceived in sin and we are born sinful. There is still hope for us. There is hope that through the washing and renewal that we receive in our baptism the old Adam in us has died and the new Adam is born. Even though we have this assurance, we still feel separated from God at times. When we sin, we don’t feel as connected to God as we should. We don’t feel like we deserve the forgiveness that God provides. We are in the same position Jesus was on the cross. We should know better though. Every Sunday we confess that Jesus came down from heaven and was made man. He was crucified for us and took on our sins. He too felt separated from God. He felt forsaken by his Father. Through this, he was still able to defeat sin, death, and the Devil. He took on our sins for us and took the punishment for us. He now sits at the right hand of the Father in glory. So, though we may feel separated from God, we should have hope knowing that in our baptism we were won by God. We don’t have to feel separated from God, because every Sunday we eat his body and drink his blood. We are sinful, but Christ Jesus has paid the price for our sins.

This is hard to apply in our political world. You can find other passages in the Bible that you can apply across the board, but these words by Jesus are focused on Christians in particular and that is how I will apply them. As a Christian in our political world today it is easy to feel lost. It is easy to feel like everyone you come in contact with is a godless person. While navigating in the political world, it may feel like God has forsaken us. We may feel separated from God when we are in a world that seems not to know God. We should take hope in the fact that God does not forsake us in any aspect of our lives. God first takes care of our spiritual body, but he also promises to take care of our earthly body. As long as we are using our vocation to serve him we should walk courageously knowing we are taken care of.

We may feel separated and forsaken by God in both our spiritual and physical lives at times. We should hold fast in the knowledge that Christ Jesus has joined us to God in his death. In Jesus’ death our sins are forgiven and we are made perfect in the sight of God. We should feel certain that God is with us in every aspect of our lives and we are protected.