Words from the Cross – 5
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” Matthew 27:46
Suddenly, when men refused to quench the thirst of their Creator, everything turned into darkness. It was noon and the sun refused to give its light to men who had rejected the spiritual light. The darkness of their souls was manifested outside and covered the earth. Everybody trembled in fear because they had never experienced anything of the kind. What would happen then? Some who knew the Scriptures remembered the plagues in Egypt when the Pharaoh had not paid heed to the petitions of God’s children and darkness had covered the land. Could it be that God’s judgments were falling upon the earth? They remained quiet, expecting something great to happen. Some of them ventured home in the darkness. There was silence everywhere, the laughter and jokes had ceased, only the barking of the dogs could be heard piercing the night as a prelude of something unusual that was about to happen. Every one was being given time to examine his own heart, there, at the foot of the cross, to look at Him who was hanging there and see in Him the Son of God condemned for his personal sins. What a solemn moment! What a crucial hour! The time of their visitation had come. For some it was a blessed moment, for others, a fatal one. It was the moment of the naked truth.
The Spirit of God was working with power to convince man of sin, while Jesus was living the most agonizing moment of His life. He had bore with the rejection and hatred of man, but He could not bear the Father’s rejection, the Father with whom He had lived since immemorial times, with whom He had participated in the act of creation, with whom He had shared the throne and heard the praises of the angels. His faithful and loving Father turned His face away from Him because He, voluntarily, in agreement with Him, in an act of insurmountable love, incomprehensible for human beings, had turned His back to the richness and joy of heaven, had become a man, a sinner, a “filthy rag.”
Divinity cannot be in contact with humanity because it would destroy it; so the Father hid Himself in darkness and bitterly cried seeing His beloved Son going through such affliction, such anguish in His soul as He was incapable of having communion with Him. That was what made Jesus pronounce these words that had been prophesized centuries before by a king of Israel who had been anointed by divine command: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me?” (psalm 22: 1)
Is there anything worse than to be abandoned by God? To be abandoned by God means to be absolutely lost, for ever, to be dead. Jesus did not want to live, He could not live a single moment separated from the Father.
May the Lord help us understand the magnitude of the sacrifice on the cross, the agony our Creator went through in order to bridge the gap that separates us from the Father and reestablish communion with Him and may He give us hearts full of gratitude for His great sacrifice.
Amen