April 5, 2010 — 1:32 PM
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Mark 15:33-37: “Eloi, Eloi lema sabachthani?”
Forsaken.
Such a stark word. But there Jesus was. Hanging on the cross. With only criminals and guards around him. Where were all the people he had healed? Where were all the people he had fed? Where were all the people he had taught?
Forsaken.
They were not there. They had turned away from him. When they realized that he wasn’t the messiah that they had imagined, when they realized that he did not intend to overthrow the earthly powers that were oppressing them, they called for his crucifixion. He had misled them. He had given them a false sense of hope. He was an imposter. He must go.
Forsaken.
Even his closest disciples were mostly absent. Only the women were there. But even they were keeping their distance. Even they were afraid to be too closely linked with him. These people, whom Jesus had shown God’s deep love through his very life on a daily basis, were now far from him or absent.
Forsaken.
And now, the one Jesus called “Abba,” Father, seemed far away too. This one whose will Jesus came to fulfill. This one whose love he worked to make real for all those with whom he came in contact. This one who wanted a different way of being for God’s people. Even this one seemed distant to Jesus as he hung dying on the cross.
So Jesus cried out. The reality of all that turning away was too much to bear. How could one person be asked to carry such a load?
Jesus knew from the beginning that the message he brought would not be popular with many who heard it – especially not with the religious leaders of the day. But to have all but these few, distant women turn from him that seemed like nothing short of a resounding defeat for his message.
Jesus reached the cross abandoned by all but this small handful of the people with whom he had interacted during his short lifetime. Sin had caused them to turn away. The sin of pride made the religious leaders turn away. The sin of not wanting to change made others turn away. Even those closest to Jesus throughout his ministry were guilty of the sins of incomprehension and inertia.
Because of all of these sins, Jesus had to pay with his life. He had tried to communicate the true character of God’s kingdom through his ministry. But he had to use one last object lesson – his willingness to give up his own life – so that that message could be heard unobstructed by human sin.
Throughout all of the struggles of Jesus’ ministry he was confident in his actions because he knew that he was fulfilling the will of the father. That knowledge gave him the courage to forgo his own inclinations to back off and not force confrontations with the leaders. It gave him the courage to go all of the way to the cross to make his point clear.
But when he reached his last hour, the rejection, isolation, and abandonment of every one of his followers overcame him. The sadness weighed down on him so heavily that all Jesus could do was cry out to the divine. “Have even you abandoned me?” This plea was so plaintive that the author of the Gospel left it written in Jesus’ native tongue, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” Because no one around Jesus understood Aramaic, these words, like all those he had said before, fell on deaf ears.
Forsaken.
Jesus knew that no earthly ears would understand his pleas but he cried out anyway. He cried out not to hear his own voice. He cried out not because he thought that angels or Elijah or some other important figure from the past would come to save him. Jesus, like the Psalmist who cried these words before him, cried out because silently he perceived that God hears! God hears! Confident of that fact, Jesus was able to finish the work that he was sent to do, the work that led him to the cross. He gave a loud cry seeking a final judgment by God that would bring retribution.
He was not forsaken. Of that he was sure.
With this, Jesus died. The people who had previously followed him had now turned away. They had turned from Jesus’ words that the kingdom of God is ruled by love of God and love of neighbor. They had turned to begin anew the search for the messiah who would deliver them from their current situation. They wanted immediate liberation from the oppression of the Romans, not a new way to understand God’s kingdom. Surely this man who hung sadly on a cross – the death befitting a failed insurrectionist—could not have been he. Thinking this, all but a few people turned away. The women stayed. They were awaiting God’s response.
Today, we must ask ourselves, “Have we turned away from Jesus’ message too? Have we sinned through pride, incomprehension or inertia like those followers in Jesus’ day? Or are we like the women, waiting, expecting God’s response?” Jesus calls us, as he called the people in Mark’s Gospel, to repent and believe because God’s kingdom has come near. God heard Jesus’ cry. God did not abandon Jesus. And God does not abandon God’s people. Let those who have ears hear. Amen.
