Episode 2009: On the Cross: Why have you forsaken me? - Part 19

Statement 19 of the last 22 statements made by Christ before His death:

(Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34) "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

I have always thought that this cry was unique to Jesus, however in Psalm 22, it is the agonized prayer of David which applies prophetically to Christ. David is expressing his own experience of feeling abandoned by God. Here is the most intense suffering God’s servant can know— that he feels that God does not hear him and does not care about his suffering.

There are many lines from Psalm 22 that prophesy (prah-fe-sigh) Matthew and Mark’s gospels. Here are just a few:
Verse 1: O God my God, look upon me: why hast thou forsaken me? Far from my salvation are the words of my sins.

Verse 7-8: All they that saw me have laughed me to scorn: they have spoken with the lips, and wagged the head. He hoped in the Lord, let him deliver him: let him save him, seeing he delighteth in him.

Verses 16-19: My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue hath cleaved to my jaws: and thou hast brought me down into the dust of death. For many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet. They have numbered all my bones. And they have looked and stared upon me. They parted my garments amongst them; and upon my vesture they cast lots.

(I was wondering if the phrase, “many dogs have encompassed me” might be a derogatory comment about the Roman soldiers?)

Archbishop Fulton Sheen explained: “Jesus took upon himself the sins of the world. This pain and desolation Jesus suffered for each of us, that we might know what a terrible thing it is for human nature to be without God, to be deprived of a divine remedy and consolation. It was the supreme act of atonement for three classes of people: those who abandon God, those who doubt the presence of God, and those who are indifferent to God.”

When we think that God has abandoned US, are we sure it is not WE who have abandoned God? Or doubted His presence? Or became indifferent?

Bishop Sheen also said that [Jesus experienced] isolation and abandonment. "Why hast thou forsaken me?" … And yet it was not abandonment, for it was prefaced by: "My God, my God!" The sun does not abandon its task to light a world because it is temporarily overshadowed by a cloud. Even though these misty shapes hide its light and heat, we still know a day of dawning is near. He also references Psalm 21:25 which says, "He hath not slighted nor despised the supplications of the poor man. Neither hath he turned away his face from me: and when I cried to him, he heard me.”

So must we remember that as Padre Pio told us, it is in our time of extreme desolation, when we think that God is not with us, that we have to double down on our faith and know that this is when God is carrying us through our difficult times.

One of the most rewarding experiences in doing research for these episodes is coming across writings that you would normally never find. In this case, I happened upon a sermon written in March of 2023 by Fr. James Ruhlin, a Pastor at St. Michael the Archangel Parish in the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, - and I love that the words on the Diocese’ website say, “Courageously Living the Gospel.”

So Fr. Ruhlin said in his sermon, “What death is to the body, sin is to the soul.
This is why Saint Paul refers to sin as a crucifixion of the divine life within us; hence, every soul is a Calvary (a place where Christ is crucified). Because humans were made for God, we feel sin as abandonment. Yet, we refuse to love God and wonder why we are unhappy.

What death is to the body, sin is to the soul is Fr. Ruhlin rephrasing what St. Augustine said, “The death, then, of the soul takes place when God forsakes it, as the death of the body when the soul forsakes it.”

So it only makes sense that if we think that God has forsaken us, isn’t that a sin? Jesus says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” because God is looking upon all the sins that Jesus took on for us. But Jesus is calling out to God because He knows that God is there with Him. God was turning away from our sin. If we believe that God is turning away from us, especially if we are experiencing, as St. John of the Cross says, “a dark night of the soul,” it truly is the sin of our soul. We are forsaking God.

We read in one of the most well known bible passages, John 3:16, “For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.” God so loves us that He gave us His only son. How could we think that God would turn away from us when He gave us the greatest gift we could ever know.

Thank you for listening.