My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?

Mark 15:33-39
Palm Sunday
Shiloh Lutheran Church

I used to backpack with some friends in a place called Hoover Wilderness Area, just outside the northeast corner of Yosemite National Park. To get there from northern California, we had to drive to Nevada then enter from the eastern side of the Sierra mountains. The elevation when we started hiking was about 8,000 feet or so, and the trail climbed steadily to Virginia Pass, at 10,500 feet. It was a tough way to begin the trip. We lived at sea level and weren't used to the altitude, and as we got closer to the pass, there were always several disappointments. We'd see a point up ahead that we thought was the top, so we'd push ourselves to get there, only to look up at another high point a seemingly impossible distance away. Climbing mountain passes is like that; you can never be sure where the top is until you actually arrive, and along the way there will be times when you think you're nearly there, only to discover that there's more climbing to do.

Today is Palm Sunday, the day we celebrate Jesus' triumphal entry into Jerusalem. If we were reading about this event for the first time, we might think that this is the "peak." Everything seems to be falling into place. The people have finally "gotten it." There have been some difficulties, but now they've recognized Jesus for who He is and are welcoming Him as their King, the promised Messiah. If we were there, watching Jesus enter Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, we would be likely to conclude "the kingdom is about to begin. Everything we've been waiting for is happening." Even the Pharisees are thinking this way, although they aren't happy about it. When they see the crowds at His triumphal entry into Jerusalem they cry out to one another, "You see, you can do nothing. Look, the world has gone after him."

But in John's gospel this high point in Jesus' popularity is preceded immediately by His anointing for burial (chapter 12). Jesus knows what is coming as He enters Jerusalem. He isn't taken in by all the excitement. He knows that things are going to turn around very quickly. He enters Jerusalem at the beginning of the week in triumph, being welcomed as the King; but by the end of the week He is being taken outside the city and crucified as a common criminal. The cry on Palm Sunday is "Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord." But the cry on Good Friday is "Away with Him; crucify Him." The joyful welcome of Palm Sunday is followed very soon by the profound alienation and rejection of Good Friday. That's why Palm Sunday is also called Passion Sunday. The triumph of Palm Sunday is followed, in only a few days, by the Passion.

I've mentioned, in the past, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book that has no obvious connection to its title. Robert Pirsig and his son, Chris, are on a motorcycle trip across America, and in the context of telling the story of their journey, Pirsig engages in philosophical reflections. As they ride through the sparsely-populated Western states, he comments on loneliness: "It's paradoxical that where people are the most closely crowded, in the big coastal cities in the East and West, the loneliness is the greatest. Back where people were so spread out in western Oregon and Idaho and Montana and the Dakotas you'd think the loneliness would have been greater, but we didn't see it so much. The explanation, I suppose, is that the physical distance between people has nothing to do with loneliness. It's psychic distance...." (pp. 321-22). We saw something similar on the ship Logos when we arrived in southern France. A missionary who lived there came and told us that one of the most pressing problems was loneliness, people living in apartment complexes who never spoke to their neighbors. They were surrounded on all sides by lonely people who had no connection with one another. It's psychic distance, a sense of alienation, that leads to loneliness.

There's a reason for this sense of alienation. Listen to Paul's description of the Ephesians before they heard the gospel: "remember that you were at that time without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world" (Ephesians 2:12). Their basic spiritual condition was alienation: "without Christ," "aliens from the commonwealth of Israel," "strangers to the covenants of promise." Outsiders, people who don't belong. And, even worse, "having no hope and without God in the world." Their basic spiritual condition was alienation, he says. That's what the Fall has brought into this world: because of sin we're alienated, separated from the purpose of our existence. And Jesus, on the cross, has entered into our alienation. He's become one with us in our experience as people who have no hope, who are without God in the world. That's what this cry of dereliction, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is about. Jesus is experiencing the full force of the alienation that is ours in this fallen world.

For Lent, a few years ago, I read Richard John Neuhaus's meditations on the last words of Jesus from the cross, Death on a Friday Afternoon. Neuhaus says that we see the truth about our lives by looking at Christ: "The ancient Christian fathers spoke of the Christ event as the ‘recapitulation' of the entire human drama. In this one life, all lives are summed up; in the eternal present of this one life, the past is encompassed, the future is anticipated and the life of Everyman and Everywoman is most truly lived. ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life,' he said. Not a way among other ways, not a truth among other truths, not a life among other lives, but the way of all ways, the truth of all truths and the life of all lives. Recapitulation. It means, quite simply and solemnly, that this is your life, this is my life and we have not come to our senses until we see ourselves in the life, and death, of Christ" (pp. 4-5). If we want to understand, and come to terms with, the alienation we feel living in this world, the place to begin is by looking at Jesus on the cross, crying out, "my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" In this cry of dereliction we see the truth about ourselves; by nature we are aliens and strangers, people who don't belong, without hope and without God in the world.

First, let's talk about what Jesus is experiencing. This subject is shrouded in mystery. We can't comprehend what it meant, in psychological terms, for Him to be both fully divine and fully human at the same time. We can't grasp what it meant for Him, as the perfect Son of God, to enter into our lostness. But we can at least say this: on the cross, Jesus is overwhelmed by darkness. The darkness that covers the land from the sixth till the ninth hour corresponds to the condition of His heart. He's experiencing profound spiritual darkness, a "darkness that can be felt."

Walter Wangerin, a Lutheran pastor and writer, has a wonderful series of meditations for the days of Lent. If you're looking for something to use during this season next year, I recommend it. It's entitled Reliving the Passion. He has a great description of what is happening to Jesus on the cross: "It is against him that heaven has been shut.... He has entered the absolute void. Between the Father and the Son now exists a gulf of impassable width and substance.... This is a mystery, that Christ can be the obedient, glorious love of God and the full measure of our disobedience, both at once. But right now this mystery is also a fact. And the fact must seem to last forever. Hell's horror is that it lasts forever. And this, precisely, is the bitterest drop in the cup: that, crying down eternity unheard, separated absolutely from God – from the God he cannot help but love even still – Jesus is in Hell. The darkness that covers Jerusalem from noon to the middle of the afternoon, is no less than the damnation of the Messiah, who wails and gnashes his teeth in an utter solitude from now (so it must seem) unto eternity. Hell is eternal. And he has descended into Hell" (p. 126). Jesus, at this moment on the cross, is in utter darkness; He's experiencing complete alienation from the Father. He's tasting, in full measure, the experience of being "without hope and without God in this world." He has, in the words of the creed, "descended into Hell."

Second, notice how Jesus responds. He's experiencing profound alienation; His whole being is enveloped in darkness. How does He respond to this experience? He prays; He cries out to the Father, who's withdrawn His presence. But there's more than this. He prays with words from the Psalms. The beginning of Psalm 22 becomes a vehicle for crying out in the darkness. Have you ever wondered why Jesus puts these words into the form of a question? He knew this was coming. He told the disciples ahead of time that this was going to happen, and in the garden He surrendered to the will of the Father, saying "not my will, but yours, be done." And now He says "why have you forsaken me?" The words are in the form of a question because He's taking them directly from the psalm. He's spent His life praying the psalms as part of the synagogue worship, and now that He's in darkness He uses these words that perfectly express the cry of His heart.

Several years ago I visited a man in the hospital. He'd been afflicted with one health problem after another and was at the end of his rope. He said to me, "I just don't know what to pray any more." Every time he tried to pray, he found that he didn't have anything to say; he didn't have words to express the cry of his heart. He was experiencing darkness and confusion. So I recommended praying the psalms, and he responded with disgust, "I thought we were supposed to pray from the heart." I answered, "pray these from your heart; they'll give voice to some of the things you don't know how to say." The psalmists cry out to God from the whole range of human experience, and by praying the Psalms we train ourselves in a language for prayer. Jesus' example here encourages us in the regular practice of praying the Psalms. In His time of greatest need the words were there on His lips, because He had been praying these things all His life. Pray the Psalms regularly, but especially pray them when you're going through times of darkness. They'll help you say things in God's presence that you otherwise wouldn't know how to say, or maybe wouldn't even have the courage to say.

The third thing to notice is the outcome. In verse 37, Mark says that Jesus "gave a loud cry and breathed his last." He doesn't say what that cry was. Luke tells us that Jesus used another prayer from the Psalms: "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46, quoting Psalm 31:5), and in John's gospel Jesus cries out: "It is finished" (John 19:30). Jesus has finished the work the Father has given Him to do, so He lays down His life and breathes His last. And then, because He's finished the work the Father gave Him to do, Mark says: "And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom" (v. 38). The function of that curtain was to limit access into God's presence. The only person allowed behind that curtain was the high priest, and even he was only allowed there once a year. It was a very graphic symbol of our alienation. The tearing of the curtain tells us that the way into God's presence has been opened. The barrier that stood between ourselves and God, keeping us out of His presence, has been removed.

Jesus tasted all the horror of the world's alienation from the presence of God, and by experiencing our alienation He's opened the way for us to be dis-alienated. He's opened the way for us to be reconnected with God and with the purpose of our creation. Earlier in the sermon I quoted from Ephesians 2:12, where Paul says that our condition was that of aliens and strangers, "without hope and without God." In the very next verse, he says: "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ" (Ephesians 2:13). In Christ we've been brought near. One of John Michael Talbot's early songs has the line, "No longer strangers; no longer aliens; now we are citizens with the saints in the kingdom of God." He entered into our darkness, so that we who were far away from God, cut off from His presence, could draw near to Him in confidence that He will accept us willingly. We're not strangers and aliens any longer.

That's what we're celebrating during this Lenten season, and it comes into the clearest focus in the events of the coming week. Spend some time this week meditating on the suffering and crucifixion of Christ. We're headed toward Easter and the Resurrection, but let's not rush ahead. We haven't yet reached the peak. By reflecting on the events of Holy Week, we're able to enter more deeply into the joy and wonder of Easter Sunday. We're able to come home into God's presence because of what Jesus did on Good Friday; He entered and endured the full weight of our darkness and lostness. Because Jesus hung on the cross, crying out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" we're able to enter freely into the Holy of Holies, as the author of Hebrews reminds us: "And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. This is the new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us through the sacred curtain, by means of his death for us. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God's people, let us go right into the presence of God, with true hearts fully trusting him. For our evil consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water" (Hebrews 10:19-22, NLT). Since the barrier has been taken away, let's come boldly and confidently into God's presence, knowing that He will receive us willingly. Whatever we may feel at any given moment, the truth is that in Christ we are no longer strangers and aliens; in Christ we are citizens of God's kingdom.