Forsaken!
Our Bible passage, introduction to Sunday 23rd October’s service and hymns are below.
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Our verses are:
Mar 15:33 And when the sixth hour was come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour.
Mar 15:34 And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Mar 15:35 And some of them that stood by, when they heard it, said, Behold, he calleth Elias.
Mar 15:36 And one ran and filled a spunge full of vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink, saying, Let alone; let us see whether Elias will come to take him down.
Mar 15:37 And Jesus cried with a loud voice, and gave up the ghost.
Mar 15:38 And the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom.
Mar 15:39 And when the centurion, which stood over against him, saw that he so cried out, and gave up the ghost, he said, Truly this man was the Son of God.
Mar 15:40 There were also women looking on afar off: among whom was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome;
Mar 15:41 (Who also, when he was in Galilee, followed him, and ministered unto him;) and many other women which came up with him unto Jerusalem.
Forsaken!
We may be sure there was never a day in the history of the world quite like this day. In the first three hours the Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross there had been general activity; a coming and going of soldiers, people and priests. In many respects Christ’s crucifixion was an execution similar to many others, the soldiers gambled for the Lord’s cloak, some people began to drift away.
There was a short communication between the Lord and the men with whom He was being crucified. Jesus had even been able to speak briefly to His mother and His disciple John in a tender moment of filial care and concern. But no one was prepared for what happened next.
Nature reacts
At noon, as the sun reached its peak its brightness suddenly dimmed, then darkened, then disappeared. The mocking cries of the Jews diminished with the light and were replaced with cries of fear and confusion. There was an earthquake, the ground moved, the rocks around about split and the graves of dead saints were opened and their decayed bodies exposed to the air.
The huge woven veil which hung in the temple separating the holy place from the holy of holies was ripped into two pieces from the top to the bottom just at the time when the daily sacrifice was being made. Imagine the consternation of those present as the holy of holies suddenly appeared to their view! In a beautiful type the Lord showed our access to God by a new and living way.
Back at Golgotha the centurion charged with putting Jesus to death found himself compelled to acknowledge Christ to be the Son of God. The mocking Jews who had come to see Christ crucified and killed smote their breasts and returned to the city ashamed and perplexed.
Suffering hid from sight
For three hours the supernatural darkness covered the whole land shielding the final stage of the Lord’s suffering from the eyes of man. The Jews had betrayed their King, the Romans had crucified the God-man, now God’s judgment against the iniquity of His elect people brought the full weight of divine wrath into the soul of the true offering for sin. Isaiah says, ‘it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin’. Now the Saviour found Himself abandoned by God Himself.
Forsaken by all
As Jesus hung in the darkness He cried out the words, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ This cry teaches us that judgment for sin involves being forsaken by God. Hell is being forsaken by God and separated from God, this is what Christ endured. It is notable that Jesus says, ‘My God’ rather than ‘My Father’.
This distinction from the lips of the Saviour shows us how Christ suffered in His humanity as a man for mankind. Our Saviour and Representative prayed to God as ‘my God’. The ‘my’ is important. In the depths of His suffering Jesus trusted and believed in God. By faith He claimed a personal interest with God. Yet, now our Lord Jesus Christ felt God had withdrawn His presence from Him.
Hope in suffering
The Lord’s cry is an expression of Christ’s hope and confidence in God despite having no sense of the favour and pleasure of God. Jesus was now bearing the whole burden of the sins of His people. He felt the grief of those sins, He felt the guilt of those sins, He felt the pain those sins merited, and until the cup of suffering for those sins was completely drained He felt deprived of the presence of His Father.
Watch and wonder
This moment in time is unique and unrepeatable. Our finite minds cannot explain the mystery of this divine transaction and interaction between the Holy Lord God and the Man Christ Jesus. For example, while the Saviour felt the loss of God’s presence His experience of being forsaken cannot mean the union of God and man in the Person of Jesus Christ was ever broken or divided.
God’s love for the Lord Jesus was neither diminished nor withheld. Nor was God’s pleasure in the obedience of His Son affected. God does not change. But what we may say is that at least for a time, in the depths of His suffering for sin, our Lord Jesus Christ lost the comfort and awareness of His Father’s love and pleasure.
Christ’s work finished
As light returned the Lord cried out again with a loud voice declaring, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30) and ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my Spirit’ (Luke 23:46). Then, says Mark, He ‘gave up the ghost’ and dismissed His Spirit. By this we learn the Saviour died freely and voluntarily and not through force or physical necessity. He laid down His life.
Christ’s work of redemption and atonement was complete and His job was done. He paid the debt for the sins of His people and ransomed our lives with His own precious blood, making atonement for us. Christ’s suffering was over and His reverting to calling God ‘Father’ speaks of restored and renewed awareness of the divine love and pleasure as He commended His Spirit into His Father’s hands.
Amen
Our hymns are below.
Hymn 1
Gadsby selection 663
Sympathy with Christ. Luke 23. 46; Ps. 42. 7
W. Gadsby S.M.
1
Beloved, we are come
With Christ to sympathise;
For us he has the victory won,
And we shall share the prize.
2
But O remember him;
View justice, armed with wrath;
The vengeance due to Zion’s sin,
Stung Zion’s Lord to death.
3
In miseries great he sighed;
He groaned; he cried; he bled;
He sank in wrath’s tremendous tide,
And dying, bowed his head.
4
Christians, repeat his love;
With solemn pleasure sing
The bloody conflicts of your God;
The victories of your King.
Hymn 2
Gadsby selection 763
Godly Sorrow arising from the Sufferings of Christ. Luke 23. 45
I. Watts C.M.
1
Alas! and did my Saviour bleed?
And did my Sovereign die?
Would he devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?
2
Thy body slain, sweet Jesus, thine,
And bathed in its own blood;
While all exposed to wrath divine
The glorious Sufferer stood.
3
Was it for crimes that I had done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity! grace unknown!
And love beyond degree.
4
Well might the sun in darkness hide,
And shut his glories in,
When God, the mighty Maker, died
For man, the creature’s sin.
5
Thus might I hide my blushing face,
While his dear cross appears;
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt my eyes in tears.
As our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross there was three hours of darkness and an earthquake which shattered rocks and opened graves. Nature groaned as the Son of God suffered. The Saviour felt the absence of His Father’s comfort in the midst of His trials but He drank the cup of suffering to the end and with the satisfaction of God’s justice came a return of the sun and the rending of the temple veil that shielded the holy of holies. A new and living way of access to God was now opened for sinners.
23 October 2022