Have you ever faced the feeling of abandonment?

That happened on the shores of a lake, but now we fast forward into the shadow of the cross, in the wake of his arrest and false accusation and fake trial that is conducted…and where are the crowds, where are his followers? Where are the 12?

What does this mean? “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice … My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The “loud voice” is a Greek word that is never used anywhere else in the New Testament, and it really means a scream. Jesus screamed. This is something that has troubled people for many years, because it certainly looks like at this point Jesus broke, he gave up on God, he collapsed, he’s saying to God, “You’ve failed me.” And this has troubled many people. One thing that’s interesting is historians know at least on the surface it is such a troubling statement that almost for sure it wasn’t made up...if you’re making up a story about a hero – this is a part you would leave out.

This statement, this cry, is really the deepest revelation of the “passion of Christ.”
Q) What does the word passion mean? Originally, the Latin word passion meant: suffering. =The passion of Jesus is that he underwent infinite suffering out of infinite love for us.

Up to this moment, Jesus has been unbelievably calm. So when he starts to scream here, this is something else. This is something way beyond physical suffering. It’s infinite spiritual suffering, because when the darkness came down on the land, that’s representative of what was happening to Jesus spiritually. Jesus (God’s Son) was forsaken by God the Father (vv.45–49). The darkness from noon till three signaled that God's own court was in session. Dark drapes were pulled around the proceedings. It was both too holy and too horrible for our eyes. The darkness was a familiar sign of God's judgment.

C. S. Lewis-
wrote, "To God, God's last words are 'Why hast thou forsaken me?'" God the Father forsook God the Son because the Judge would not look upon the Sin-bearer. Jesus in those moments was no longer spotless; he was thoroughly stained with OUR sin. He was no longer faultless; he was guilty through and through with OUR sin. God could not help him; God could not even face him.

Psalm 22 begins with great darkness but it ends with incredible light.
So Jesus, on the cross, when he says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” he’s saying 2 things.
1) “I am suffering infinitely.”
2) But the other thing he’s saying is, “Though God is condemning me, I’m sticking with the plan. Though God is striking me, I’m holding onto his Word. Though God is casting me out, I’m holding on. There’s something he is doing.” That’s what Psalm 22 is saying. “There’s something God’s accomplishing, and I’m working it, I’m holding onto it, to the very end.”

What is this telling us? Jesus Christ was up on the cross, and he was meditating on the Scripture.
= Jesus held on to Scripture which utterly contradicted his feelings, utterly contradicted his experience, utterly contradicted his senses. Friends: We all will face ‘dark’ times in life – and what we need in that moment is the freedom to wrestle with God and to grab ahold of His Word given to us that can help us replace feelings of despair, with the HOPE given to us by our GOOD GOD. It’s not only leaning on the inerrancy and intimacy of Scripture, but the SUFFICIENCY of them for our life and living.

No matter what we face, we never face it utterly alone. We’re never truly abandoned anymore BECAUSE OF JESUS. Jesus tasted deepest abandonment so we wouldn’t have to know that pain. That we could know a ‘forever acceptance and presence’ with Him! Darkness is not our forever climate – we’ve got a forever climate of HOPE because of Jesus. He is with us no matter what. If we trust in Him, we have a secured future – that the best is yet to come!

Jesus is showing us where we take life's WHY'S. We can trust God as our ultimate WHO, because He can handle our biggest WHY's. When we trust God as our ultimate WHO, then he helps us navigate life’s inevitable WHY’s.

There’s an invitation in this psalm: As you go down into the darkness. Trust that God will be there. Trust that as you engage him, as you grab hold of him, as you wrestle with him, you’ll come out the other side believing that he’s bigger than you’ve ever known him to be. There’s another invitation in this psalm: an invitation to reflect/repent: a moment for us to realize that the reason Jesus had to travel to the cross, embrace this suffering, was because of ME, because of YOU. But what kept him on the cross – was his LOVE for US.

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