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God-forsaken

Psa 22

Rev. Peter R Green, Sunday morning, 13 Mar, 2005

‘Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani!’ It’s among the saddest cries ever heard. ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’ Theologians have never fully explained the mystery of these words.

  Somehow the cry of Jesus from the cross is both just what we need to hear, and yet the last thing we want. We long for a God who knows what our life is really like, but can't believe that such a God could truly exist.

  As we approach Easter, we are looking at the cross and what it means. And here, once again, we see what mission is really like. Here, once again, we see the price that Jesus paid and realise that the servant can never expect an easier life than his master has.

  People often don’t realise that Jesus did not exactly quote the Hebrew of Psalm 22 as he cried out on the cross. If he had quoted it, we might have said, “Jesus was a self–publicist. Maybe his apparent death was a trick. Or maybe there was some secret code he shared among his disciples. What did he mean?”

  But Jesus spoke Aramaic, not Hebrew. His words echoed the Hebrew of the thousand–year–old psalm, but they were his own words.

  David wrote, Eli, Eli, lama asabthani; Jesus said, Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani. Just slight changes, but they say so much.

  The heart of what he said is exactly the same; the words are just enough different.

  For a moment, for an eternal second of time, he felt totally and completely abandoned by the God from whom he had never ever turned away. For a soul–piercing moment, he knew the complete alienation of a soul in hell.

  And he words were torn from him — “God — my God — why have you let me down!?”

  Which of us hasn’t had, at some time in our lives, a sense of what it means to be really cut off from God?

  You and I are real people. We do real people things. We have lied, cheated, stolen, defrauded... There has been sexual misconduct and financial misconduct; there has been willful disobedience and there have been muddles which just grew too hard to get out of. We have seen the lot.

  Some of the things we have done seemed fine at the time, and then the crunch came later. Other times, even as we betrayed God, we knew what we were doing.

  Adam knew at once that he was betraying his creator and friend; Pilate may never have fully understood what he did.

  We need a God who understands separation from God. But can we truly have such a thing? Isn’t this a logical contradiction? Isn’t it an impossiblity, like political intelligence?

  But we need to answer the questions for our own good. Are we too lacking in understanding to grasp the meaning of Jesus’ soul–piercing wail? How does this event impact on mylife?

  If you read the gospels, one thing stands out before everything else, and that is the unbroken fellowship Jesus has with his heavenly Father.

  He says,

I and the Father are one.

He says,

^{Jn 3:35} The Father loves the Son and has placed everything in his hands.

or, as Luke has it,

LK 10:22 “All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”

  Some people get uneasy about the degree of closeness revealed in such sayings. But what happens when you look closely at some of he less explicit sayings? Don’t they amount to the same thing?

  Jesus speaks on behalf of God:

^{Mt 5:20} For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.

or

^{MT 7:21} “Not everyone who says to me, `Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

  Or he describes God as the loving Father who truly provides for his children:

^{Mt 7:11} If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

  There is nothing theoretical about what Jesus says here. He has had the experience, and he assumes that the people who hear him will see how sensible it all really is.

  Everywhere you look, Jesus had a degree of intimacy with his Father which startled those who met him. People said, “He doesn’t teach like the Scribes and the Pharisees: he teaches with authority!”

  And it is that intimacy which is broken as Jesus dies on the cross.

  Many years ago, in a village in the mountains, a young man lived with his parents. They had a small farm, but Jan's parents had high hopes for their son. Not only was he bright, but he was also caring and responsible.   Jan's parents saved all their money to send the young man to the city where he could get a good education and escape from the poverty which had bound his parents and their parents through many generations.

  Everyone in the village knew what everyone else did, and they all agreed that Jan was one of the finest of the young people in the district. They were particularly impressed by the close relationship between Jan and Hans, his father.

  “What a good boy Jan is, ” they said. “And he is always there when his father wants him on the plough, or his mother needs a keg of butter broken open.”

  Autumn came, and Harvest Festival was celebrated throughout the village. Everyone came out, there were parties, dances, feasts, special services in the Village church. Everyone was relaxed, there was new wine to drink, and even the smallest children and the eldest of the old folk had smiles on their faces.

  Since childhood, Jan and Margarete had been friends, and some people even asked, “Will you two get married soon, or will you wait until after Jan has studied?”

  They would just smile and say that this was something about which they had no plans.

  But villages are always villages, and people loved to talk. “Young Margarete is so sweet: just right for Jan, don’t you think?”

  They were often seen talking to one another during the Festival time. People loved to talk. The romantics in the village said, “At last, Jan and Margarete are really going to get married. Isn’t it beautiful!” Other people said, “Festival time is party time. Why don’t those two get into the party instead of moping around the place and talking all the time? They'll make it hard for any of us to have fun!”

  By Winter, something had changed.

  People began to talk. Now it was, “That Margarete.” The muttered to each other. “That Margarete is getting a bit round in the face.”

  “She’s getting a bit round generally,” others said.

  And the ones who loved to find the fitting word said, “I’m sure she’s been ’round.” And they smirked at their own wit.

  Jan told his parents, “Margarete and I have to get married.”

  Hans flew into a rage. “Get out!” he shouted. “Don’t darken my doorway again! How could you do such a thing!? How could you do it to Margarete, how could you throw away your future so readily, how could you bring shame on your family like this!”

  And he burst into tears.

  Jan and Margarete travelled many miles away. They were married in a different church in a different village. They knew no one, and none of their family members were there.

  The baby came soon, and, after another year or two, there was another. Soon they had a little family, and they got on with life as best they could.

  Hans and his wife were always sad at the breach between them and their son.

  One day a stranger came to their door. He looked familiar, but they didn’t know why. “My name is Will. I lived in the village for a few months many years ago. Few of the folk were friendly, only your son, Jan, and a girl named Margarete. I thought I loved Margarete, and she loved me. We talked about marriage, but I got her pregnant. I was scared, and I ran away. Later, I heard that Jan married her, to give her a life and a home and a future. He wasn't in love with her, he had had no plan to marry her, but he did love her, and he gave himself up for his friend.”

  “I have thought long and hard,” he continued. “I came back to look for Jan and Margarete. I want to apologise, to beg their forgiveness, and to take some responsibility for my child, whom they have cared for all this time. Are they here?”

  Old Hans and his wife were in tears. “I think I know where they are,” he said. “We will set off in the morning.”

  They left early and travelled over many miles, across mountains and over rivers, until they reached the village where Jan and Margarete had made their home.

  Hans knocked on the door. Jan opened it. He wasn’t sure what to make of the old, white–haired man at the door. It was his father, but why had he come?

  “Hello, father,” he said. “What brings you here? Is everything alright?”

  Hans embraced his son. “No, it is not alright. But I have come to make amends, to try to restore our family. And this young man, Will, he has come with me to do the same.”

  They talked all day and well into the night.

  There were tears, there was anger, there was regret and, at last, there was the beginning of new relationships. What had been broken by sin was restored through love.

  In that story, Jan takes on himself not only Margarete’s sin, but Will’s. And, with him burdened with their sin, old Hans can no longer even bear to look at his son. Jan has brought shame on the family.

  On the cross, Jesus took on himself the sin of the whole world — your sin and mine.

  There was no misunderstanding between him and his heavenly Father. Jesus and his Father were perfectly One. There was no touch or tinge of enraged reaction in God, that his Son should bear

“...shame and scoffing rude” while

“In my place condemned he stood.”

  It was by the determinate plan and foreknowledge of God that Jesus was handed over to death.

  Yet God could not bear to look at his son, burdened down by so many trespasses and sins. A holy God could not associate with sin, not even when carried by his own beloved son.

  For a moment, Jesus was outside his Father’s loving scrutiny. He knew, he experienced, the pains of hell, the terror of judgment. The one who knew no sin was made sin for us, so that we could become the righteousness of God in him.

  There are two important conclusions we must draw from Jesus’s suffering on the cross.

  First, we ourselves must respond.

  If Jesus could go so far for you and for me, how can we shrug and pass by on the other side? If it is true, then it demands our response.

  Are you close to Jesus? Can you sense when the fellowship is broken, and do you long to see it restored? If not, then it is much worse broken than ou might know.

  Don’t ignore him; don’t reject him: he did it all for you.

The second important conclusion has to do with mission. I remind us all that our salvation is given us so we can reach out to others.

  Paul once wrote,

^{RO 9:1} I speak the truth in Christ—I am not lying, my conscience confirms it in the Holy Spirit— ² I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. ³ For I could wish that I myself were cursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, those of my own race, ⁴ the people of Israel.

  Think about it; reflect on it. This is incredible: Paul says that he would almost be willing to lose his own salvation, if only, somehow, that loss would bring about Israel’s conversion.

  In other words, he would be willing to suffer ­— in relation to Jesus Christ — what Jesus suffered in that hideous moment in relation to God the Father.

  I remember November 1965. The Beatles had a hit with Yesterday. I was just about to do my final exams in first year Engineering. And my grandfather was dying.

  He had never wanted to retire. I think he was afraid of living with my grandmother!

  At 72, he decided it was time.

  He was due to finish on the Friday, but he had 'flu–like symptoms that week, and finally had to miss work on Thursday and Friday. By early the next week, he was in hospital, and he told my father, “I’ve got dropsy, like my dad had. I don’t think I’ve got long.”

  And he told my mother, “See that sister up at the desk? She’s working on me. Every time I try to argue with her about Catholics, she just points at that picture of Jesus and says, “It doesn’t matter what denomination you belong to, Mr Green. It’s all about Jesus. Trust him, and you will be saved. That’s the only really important thing.”

  I was so glad, because he wasn’t a Christian.

  I prayed for him. I prayed as I never had prayed for anyone.

  Finally, one night as I was driving to the hospital, I said to God, “I am willing, if it could make a difference to Pa, I am ready to lose my own salvation if it would give him salvation.”

  I wasn’t trying to bribe God or hold him over a barrel. I just didn’t know of anything else I could give for another person.

  I don’t know whether that prayer helped or not, but I do know that, a few days later, my grandfather accepted Jesus as his Lord and saviour. A day or two later he died during exploratory surgery. He had multiple internal cancers: lung, liver, prostate.

  Mission costs. It could cost us everything. If Jesus suffered even a moment of total separation from God, what loss would you and I suffer in order to follow in his footsteps?

  My answer tells how real my experience of salvation is.

AMEN

© Peter R. Green 2005. Permission is granted for quotation in full for non-commercial purposes provided that authorship is acknowledged and this copyright notice is displayed with the text. Portions also copyright The Bible, NIV (Zondervan Ltd.)