Jesus' Dark Night of the Soul
At three o'clock Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Mark 15:34, Message.
As we noted yesterday, throughout His life Jesus had always felt the presence of His Father, no matter how difficult things got. But now, on the cross, it changed. Internal darkness reflected the external. Overwhelmed with it, He felt Himself to be separated from the Father.
Without a word He had borne the pain of the nails, the mocking of the people, and the jeers of the priests. But when He loses sight of God's approving smile He breaks out into a heartbroken cry, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Jesus had reached the midnight hour of His soul.
We will never fully understand what he was going through. But the fact that that heartbroken cry of desolation came from a Jesus who had always felt His Father's presence makes it utterly significant. The cry itself is a part of the mystery of the cross.
The words themselves quote the first verse of Psalm 22, a psalm that parallels the events of the last ordeal of Jesus in many particulars. From the lips of the psalmist the words form little more than a complaint of a lonely and deserted man. But from the lips of Jesus the same utterance demonstrates a depth of meaning that the psalmist knew nothing about.
Why the cry from the cross? Certainly not from the fear of death. Once you are on a cross, death is a friend.
There is something deeper here. And it is related to Christ's mission to earth. On the cross, Jesus, the pure and upright God incarnate, was bearing the sins of the world. As Isaiah 53 puts it, "he bore the sin of many," "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (verses 12, 6, RSV).
One of the bitter effects of sin is that it separates sinners from God. Adam and Eve felt that separation. And so did Jesus, who became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21).
But we need to be careful here. J. D. Jones points out that "it was not that God had withdrawn His face or was angry with the Son Who was doing His will. It was that these crowding sins of ours hid the vision of God's face." He had lost the sense of the Father's presence. Although God had not deserted Him, from the perspective of bearing sin on the cross He felt forsaken.
The good news is that, as in so many cases, feelings are not reality.
At three o'clock Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Mark 15:34, Message.
As we noted yesterday, throughout His life Jesus had always felt the presence of His Father, no matter how difficult things got. But now, on the cross, it changed. Internal darkness reflected the external. Overwhelmed with it, He felt Himself to be separated from the Father.
Without a word He had borne the pain of the nails, the mocking of the people, and the jeers of the priests. But when He loses sight of God's approving smile He breaks out into a heartbroken cry, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" Jesus had reached the midnight hour of His soul.
We will never fully understand what he was going through. But the fact that that heartbroken cry of desolation came from a Jesus who had always felt His Father's presence makes it utterly significant. The cry itself is a part of the mystery of the cross.
The words themselves quote the first verse of Psalm 22, a psalm that parallels the events of the last ordeal of Jesus in many particulars. From the lips of the psalmist the words form little more than a complaint of a lonely and deserted man. But from the lips of Jesus the same utterance demonstrates a depth of meaning that the psalmist knew nothing about.
Why the cry from the cross? Certainly not from the fear of death. Once you are on a cross, death is a friend.
There is something deeper here. And it is related to Christ's mission to earth. On the cross, Jesus, the pure and upright God incarnate, was bearing the sins of the world. As Isaiah 53 puts it, "he bore the sin of many," "the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all" (verses 12, 6, RSV).
One of the bitter effects of sin is that it separates sinners from God. Adam and Eve felt that separation. And so did Jesus, who became sin for us (2 Cor. 5:21).
But we need to be careful here. J. D. Jones points out that "it was not that God had withdrawn His face or was angry with the Son Who was doing His will. It was that these crowding sins of ours hid the vision of God's face." He had lost the sense of the Father's presence. Although God had not deserted Him, from the perspective of bearing sin on the cross He felt forsaken.
The good news is that, as in so many cases, feelings are not reality.
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