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

My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?
Matthew 27:45-50

ETS: Jesus, God, cries out for His inner strength to endure

ESS: We must cry out to God in our struggles. We are never forsaken

OSS: Strength in midst of turmoil, sin.

WORD: Strength


Discuss humility of preaching.

READ SCRIPTURE

It was 1993–November–when the string of success began to come unraveled.
Grandfather’s stroke
Grader
Provisional entrance into doctoral program

While this story does not compare to the suffering that Jesus endured there upon that cross, it is a glimpse of suffering in my life.

It gives me reflection to live and endure through the struggles and tragedies of the future.


We need to set up a mental picture of what is happening here.
Well, we have been carrying this picture, I hope for the past week at least as we look at each of the statements of Jesus upon the cross.

1. Father, forgive them
2. Behold thy son, behold thy mother
3. Thou shalt be with me in paradise
4. My God, my god
5. I thirst
6. Into thy hands
7. It is finished

Three of these statements are prayers or cries toward Heaven

Even on the cross he cried out to God, His father,
“My God, my God why hast thou forsaken me?”

What does this mean?
Has God abandoned His own son?
Has he left him there to die on His own?
Is this the type of God we serve? Where when the going gets tough that he forsakes us?
Was the sin that Jesus bore on the cross so much that even God could not bear it?

In layman’s terms, this passage opens up a whole can of worms.

To answer this question simply, God has not forsaken Jesus. He just cannot do this. This would be against the trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
John 10:30–I and the Father are one!!!

God could not possibly separate himself from His son. To be one is one. Jesus was God incarnate.

O.K., so what you are saying then is that God incarnate cried out, “Why has thou forsaken thee?”
Well, Yes.
How do I explain it? That is not easy.

Yes, Jesus did cry these words.
I believe it was the weight of the sin?
I believe it was not necessarily that he was saying to God that he was forsaken?
I believe it was that he was forsaken by those around me.
I believe it was His utter exhaustion from the past 18-24 hours
(More detail)

So, what did those words mean?
If Annas and Caiphas heard these words, they probably felt they were futile utterings of a human being who could not even save himself.
Pleas of mere babbling would mean Jesus lost touch w/ reality; that he lost control
To many today, our cries are in futility–they don’t seem to go anywhere.
To his friends, those who were still around, they could have meant more than mere utterings, but we must remember, His people were in turmoil–the disciples were in bewilderment. One disciple was dead and another, Paul, was dealing with the verbal forsakeness he had committed the night before.
We are not, and I do not begin to wonder, what these words meant to the thief on the cross who had trusted him just a short time before.
Scripture tells us that some thought he was crying to Elijah which makes sense since the Jewish people believed Elijah would return to help those in need. What more fitting than to cry out to Elijah in this time of need. But those words Eloi Eloi are not Elijah