{"id":207,"date":"2013-03-29T14:33:43","date_gmt":"2013-03-29T13:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=207"},"modified":"2013-03-29T14:33:43","modified_gmt":"2013-03-29T13:33:43","slug":"why-have-you-forsaken-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pbthomas.com\/blog\/?p=207","title":{"rendered":"Why have you forsaken me?"},"content":{"rendered":"

How much does God love us? The Apostle Paul tells us that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the supreme demonstration of God\u2019s love for fallen human beings.
\n\u201cYou see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.\u201d (Romans 5:6-8)
\nOn this special day of Good Friday we make time to remember Jesus Christ dying on the cross. We give thanks to God that \u201cChrist loved us and gave up His life for us.\u201d (Ephesians 5:2).
\nWe sometimes try to imagine what it was like for Jesus to die for our sins. The shame of the death of a common criminal. The physical pain. The experiences of rejection. The guilt of sin. And then death, separation from God who is the source of all life. God loves us so much!
\nBut what was the role of God the Father at Calvary? Jesus gave Himself up \u2013 but we must not forget that the Father also had to give Him up and hand Him over. \u201cGod did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.\u201d \u201cBecause of our sins Christ was handed over to die.\u201d (Romans 8:32, 4:25)
\nWe find this word which means \u201chand over\u201d and \u201cgive over\u201d and \u201cgive up\u201d more than a hundred times in the New Testament. We read that the Jewish leaders handed Jesus over to Pilate. Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified. But this same word can also sometimes mean \u201cbetrayed.\u201d In Gethsemane Jesus said, \u201cThe time has come for the Son of Man to be handed over to the power of sinful men. Here is the man who is betraying me.\u201d (Matthew 26:21-22, 45-46). Judas hands over Jesus – and the Father hands over the Son to die in just the same way.
\nJesus was rejected by His own people as a blasphemer. He was condemned by the Romans as a dangerous rebel. He was deserted by His closest friends. But more important than all these rejections, on the cross God the Son felt the full reality of being abandoned by God the Father. Mark\u2019s Gospel chapter 15 verse 34 records Jesus\u2019s cry of dereliction from the cross. \u201cMy God, my God, why did You abandon me?\u201d (Mark 15:34) Why have you forsaken me?
\nHere is an experience of complete rejection. These were not just feelings of apparent desertion, but the reality of total abandonment. The Son had come to reveal God as the heavenly Father. Jesus had shocked traditional Judaism by daring to teach His disciples to address God as Abba, Daddy. But on the cross for the first time in His life Jesus cannot pray \u201cMy Father\u201d but only \u201cMy God\u201d. Why have you deserted me? Why have you forsaken me? Why have you abandoned me? Why have you handed me over? Given me up? Betrayed me? WHY have you forsaken me? How those words would have pierced the Father heart of God!
\nThese words as Jesus was on the point of death give us a glimpse into eternal realities. As Jesus was suffering on the cross something very profound was happening deep within God Himself. Martin Luther put it this way. \u201cChrist saw Himself as lost, as forsaken by God, felt in His conscience that He was cursed by God, suffered the torments of the damned who feel God\u2019s eternal wrath, shrink from it and flee.\u201d
\nIn his book \u201cThe Crucified God\u201d the German theologian Jurgen Moltmann explains the cross this way. \u201cIt was a deep division in God Himself, insofar as God abandoned God and contradicted Himself. The Son suffers in His love being forsaken by the Father as He dies. The Father suffers in His love the grief of the death of the Son.\u201d
\nSo the cross of Christ was just as hard, just as painful, just as heart-breaking for the loving Father as it was for the obedient Son. Any father would suffer handing his son over to such agony and desolation. God the Father was not an aloof spectator at Calvary. The Father was looking on with grief and tears that the world could only be reconciled and redeemed at the inestimable cost of alienation from His only beloved Son.
\nAmazing love, oh what sacrifice, the Son of God given for me!
\nMy debt he pays and my death He dies, that I might live!
\nThe sacrifice of the omnipotent Father is as great as the sacrifice of the helpless Son. God\u2019s deity is divided! The Holy Trinity, God eternally three-in-One, is split apart by OUR sin as Christ the Son shares our rebellion and experiences our separation from God the Father!
\n\u201cChrist was without sin, but God made Him to BE sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God!\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:21)
\nWe rejected God! God never rejected us. Proud, selfish and self-centred human beings have abandoned God! Ignored his laws. Refused him the worship of which He is worthy. All we deserve is to be rejected by God. But in place of rejecting us \u2013 God the Father rejects his one and only Son. The Son who was one with the Father from eternity, before space and time were created. The Son who from the very moment of his human birth lived in unbroken fellowship with God. The Son who was always the delight of God’s heart. There was absolutely nothing in the Son to cause the Father to turn His back on Him. Yet there on the cross that is what happens. The Son of God is hung up to die, forsaken, abandoned, rejected.
\nAgain Moltmann helps us to understand. \u201cThe suffering in the passion of Jesus is abandonment, rejection by God His Father. Jesus humbles Himself and takes upon Himself the eternal death of the Godless and the Godforsaken, so that the Godless and the Godforsaken can experience communion with Him.\u201d
\n\u201cMy God my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d \u201cWhy have you abandoned me?\u201d THAT is how much it cost God to bring us back from hell! THAT is how much God loves you and me! Give thanks as we remember just how much it cost Jesus to die for us. Bow down and worship \u2013 for this is your God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How much does God love us? The Apostle Paul tells us that the death of Jesus Christ on the cross is the supreme demonstration…<\/span><\/p>\n

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