“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me.” Matt 27:46 The remarkable last words spoken by Jesus before he died on the cross for you and me.

The words which gender so much wonder and discussion, especially around Easter time. They sound so fateful, yet they are merely an introduction to what our loving Savior was saying in his heart as He breathed His last breath; for He could not say all He wanted in that one last expel of air from His agonizing lungs. But the Spirit of prophecy had said it all the Psalmist David ten centuries before and what a glorious utterance of love and faith it fore spoke of what was in the Christ’s perfect heart. It spoke of the agony of His death which he died for me, twenty centuries later. Is it any wonder why we should with open hearts of love bow before the majesty of the power of prophecy which makes available the understanding for such creatures of God’s as we are. He gave everything to save me from death. He endured being separated from the very reason for which he lives and breathes – His Father – so that I could enter into life. He endured the longest moment called death, away from His Father’s life, so that anyone who would could reside in the warmth and glow of life in love for ever.

The Psalm expresses the entirety of the moment and the victory He won for you and me; for anyone who would come to Him with their heart in love. The EOE beg your attention and invites you to the foot of the cross that you might hear His wonderful and eternal utterance that he wishes to speak to you. It is personal for anyone who can hear it.  

The accounts of the crucifixion are given practically word for word in both Matthew and Mark:

“Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
   Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, this man calleth for Elijah.
   And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.
   The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.
   Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.” Matt 27:46-50 

Beginning at the very moment when Jesus spoke the words, “My God why hast thou forsaken me?”, they have been misunderstood, misinterpreted and confused. At that moment, men began running around to get Him something to drink, others said He was calling on Elijah, some said wait and see if the prophet Elijah will come and save Him, and others ignorantly declared: “He said He could save others but He could not even save Himself.”

Since that day ignorant people, supposed Christians and non-Christians alike, have said that Jesus’ faith faltered, that at the last minute He thought The Father had failed Him. Understandable for unbelievers and natural skeptics, utterly idiotic for those professing to have believed that He was the Christ.

For those of us who know Jesus in a personal way, we know such confusion is natural, but nonetheless frustrating to hear and utterly impossible to endure. Give Jesus a little credit and one will instinctively know that it is not what it seems to be at first glance from this earthbound place in which we draw our impulsive first impressions. But with God and His dealings with ignorant Man things are never the way we think they ought to be or the way they seem to our brutally limited perspective and vision

The most plausible explanation I have ever heard is that Jesus was left alone by the Father when in that exact moment He took on the sins of the world. The explanation says that God cannot look on sin and therefore when Christ became sin for us God was forced to turn His back on Jesus for a brief moment. Jesus was then jolted into saying, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

This may well be true; it all makes Scriptural sense, but there is something else about His words that is equally true and shows forth the enormity of His faith and love. Besides the fact that God obviously can look on sin, because if He couldn’t He would not have been able to give this place even a cursory glance ever, it is equally certain that Jesus, as He hung on that cross, cared more about the Father and me and you, than He did about Himself. There is a pop gospel song written and sung by Hank Williams that says, “as He hung there all alone, His life was almost gone, He never stopped prayin’ for me.” I know that is true. His love is that great!

No, Jesus’ dying words were not faithless words of doubt, or words of despair. They were a testimony of belief in the Father, a respect and a knowledge of the power and purpose of prophecy and an undying faith in the mercy of His Father.

I humbly submit to you the reader that the words “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me” was only the tip of the statement the suffocating Christ was making. I submit Jesus was referring with His dying breath to Psalm 22 in its entirety. If He could have He would have recited the whole Psalm. The Psalm begins as a prophecy of the day of His crucifixion and ends with high praise of God and a testimony of God’s salvation which would come out of the Messiah’s death and resurrection.

As the epistle says; “Looking to Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Heb 12:2  At the moment of His death Jesus was thinking of Psalm 22, thinking of the “joy that was set before Him”, and trusting God for “the glory to come.”

Picture it. As he hung, nailed to the cross, Jesus was slowly suffocating. Each breath He drew was monumentally harder to draw than the one He struggled to draw before. Unlike someone facing a firing squad, or entering a gas chamber, the condemned Jesus did not have the wind or strength to make a lengthy statement. He could no more make a speech than someone having an asthma attack. So, He gathered all the strength He had left, filled His lungs with as much air as He could inhale, and gave the world His dying testimony. Psalm 22!!

When we look at the Psalm it becomes so very believable that this is what Jesus would have said had he been able to speak. This is the testimony of the one who said just moments before. “Forgive them Father for they know not what they do.”, Luke 23:24 and had just told the thief next to Him that they would be together that day in Paradise.

That His final statement refers His Church, those who would believe on Him, to Psalm 22 is not at all farfetched, especially, in the light of all the other testimony He gave while hanging on the cross. A look at Psalm 22 reveals Christ’s heart toward man and God, at that critical moment in the Redemption Plan.

The first two verses bare out the explanation that in that moment the Son and the Father were “separated”. Jesus was totally alone. God the Father had left him to become sin for the world. “Behold,” as John the Baptist said, “The Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world.” John 1:29 and Isaiah said, “He bore our iniquities.”

Verses three through five immediately testify to God’s holiness, His faithfulness to deliver us, and that we can always trust Him, no matter what the circumstances, “they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.” This is Jesus’ proclamation of trust and faith in God, even at the moment of His being left alone while taking on the sins of the world. He did not falter or sin.

Then verses 6-18 begin to chronicle the prophetic fulfillment of that day’s events.

One by one, things not able to be uttered, the things that could not be spoken at the time had already been brought into existence, they had been given birth into the world, had not just been forecast they had been experienced in the world. Jesus confirmed their reality in that moment gave shape and form and realization to their utterance.He hung there, nailed to a tree, cursed for us, giving up His life, the very thing that He was, is and always will be – Life.

1. I am a worm, a reproach of men, and despised among the people.

2. The people accused without heart. “He trusted on the Lord … let him deliver him seeing he delighted in him.”

3. His divine nature … “thou art my God from my mother’s belly.”

4. There is none to help and the strong surround me.

5. He was poured out like water.

6. Thirsty and wrung of all strength He slowly died.

7. They pierced my hands and feet.

8. They part my garments among them and cast lots upon my vesture.

All this, recorded in Psalm 22, happened that day. It could serve as a reporter’s account for a newspaper, website or tv report. After that comes Jesus’ true faith and feelings about His Father and the trust He has in the height, breadth and depth of God’s love and the wisdom of His plan of redemption.

The Psalm (Jesus’ proclamation from the cross) says, “But be not thou far from me, 0 Lord: 0 my strength, haste thee to help me.”

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Jesus’ declaration of faith comes raining forth in Psalm 22 like this:

1. Deliver me.

2. Save me.

3. I will declare thy name unto the brethren: in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee. (vs 22)

4. I will fear Him and glorify Him.

5. And importantly, (when seen in the light of My God, why hast thou forsaken me) “For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him: but when he cried unto him, he heard.” (vs 24)

6. I will pay my vows. (vs 25)

7. “…your heart shall live forever.” (vs26)

8. The kingdom is the Lord’s. (vs28)

9. All nations shall worship before thee. (vs27)

10. None can keep alive his own soul. (vs29)

11. “A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.” (vs30)

12. They shall testify that God has done all this. (vs31)

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In this flowing declaration, there is no lack of faith in these declarations which the breathless, suffocating Messiah could only utter in one introductory phrase. With his failing breathes He had denoted in the spirit; the entire prophetic psalm of glory breathed out to a needy world. This was the ultimate faith of the perfect Son of Man, redeemer of his race. This, this great word, His heart’s desire in his dying moments. To utter it in full, but not with man’s fleshly strength, it could only be uttered by the breathing, living Holy Spirit for all time and to every generation thereafter. And so the Spirit of God utters it in our listening ears for Him. Jesus did not doubt the Father’s love and mercy, nor did He think God’s plan had gone awry. Jesus had Psalm 22 fully in His heart the moment He said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me”. He knew the “seed that would serve Him” and those who would not stop at the first verse, but would read on and discover the faith of Christ, Son of God/Son of Man.