Word of Salvation – Vol. 50 No.22 – June 2005
Never on Your Own
Sermon by Rev John Haverland on Matthew 27:46
Scripture Readings: Matthew 27:32-56; Psalm 22 or 42
Theme: On the cross Jesus was forsaken by God as the ultimate punishment for sin.
Purpose: To show that Jesus was forsaken by God so that we would not be.
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Children, some of you have probably been separated from your parents at some time. Maybe you were in a shopping centre or at a fair and you got lost – you couldn’t find your dad or mum. Getting lost is a frightening experience. You panic and feel scared and afraid and very worried.
Or you may have been separated from your parents when you were staying with someone else. Sometimes you can get very homesick and you feel really miserable. All you want to do is go back to your mum and dad. You want to go home to where you know everyone, and everyone is familiar.
Adults, too, can feel lonely and sad. That can happen when your husband or wife dies, or if you become separated or divorced. It can even happen in a marriage when couples drift apart and live like strangers in the same house. You can also be very lonely when you feel as though you have no friends – that no one is interested in you or cares about you.
All of these feelings are very difficult; it is hard to cope with these emotions. But, difficult though these are, they all pale into insignificance when we compare them with what Jesus went through here. No one can calculate the depth of his desolation. No one had ever experienced a separation like this. This was the ultimate loneliness, the most terrible alone-ness, because he was abandoned by God the Father as the punishment for the sin of his people.
Context:
Let’s pause for a moment to get our bearings in this story. Jesus had been arrested late on the Thursday night, perhaps close to midnight. He had been tried before an emergency meeting of the Sanhedrin during the rest of the night. They had found him guilty of blasphemy and worthy of death. At daybreak on Friday morning they took him to Pontius Pilate. Even though Pilate found Jesus innocent, he ordered that he be flogged and taken out to be crucified.
Jesus was hung on the cross about 9 am (the third hour of the day in Roman reckoning). During those first few hours he spoke a few words to those around him. He prayed for those who crucified him. He gave words of promise to the criminal next to him. He spoke to his mother.
Then at noon (the sixth hour) a strange and eerie darkness came over the land. This lasted for three hours, till 3 pm in the afternoon (the ninth hour in Roman reckoning). This was a real darkness. We don’t know what caused this or how it happened. It was the wrong time of the month for an eclipse of the sun. This was a supernatural darkness.
It was caused by God. It represented the lowest point in the suffering of Jesus. It was a symbol of the darkest period of Christ’s suffering on the cross. It represented the judgment of God on human sin. This was a crucial moment in the suffering of the Lord Jesus and in the history of the world. These few hours were a critical time in God’s plan of salvation.
When Jesus was born, the night sky above Bethlehem was brightened by the light and brilliance of many angels. When Jesus died, the midday sun above Golgotha was darkened by God – which provided a fitting backdrop for the evil angels who came to torment Jesus for these few hours. At the ninth hour – the end of those three hours of darkness – Jesus cried out in a loud voice: ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani!’ which means, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!’
This was his fourth cry from the cross and it was the most agonising of them all. It is also among the most remarkable statements you read anywhere in the gospels.
Jesus quoted from the opening verse of Psalm 22. That psalm was written in Hebrew but Jesus probably spoke it in Aramaic.
There have been many interpretations of these words, some of which are far-fetched. Some have given this a psychological slant, suggesting that throughout his life Jesus had fears about God leaving him, but had suppressed these, and now they were coming out. Others have suggested that this was a cry of anger and unbelief. That Jesus believed that his Father would rescue him at the last minute and that when this did not happen his faith failed him. Others have said that Jesus only felt abandoned but that the Father did not really leave him alone. His words, they say, were only expressing his own feelings.
But these interpretations miss the point of what was going on here. We must not weaken what Jesus said. We must not water down the full strength of what Jesus suffered in these hours. He was truly forsaken. God the Father left him alone to bear the full weight and punishment of sin.
There is a mystery here. No one on earth will ever fully understand what this means. None of us can truly appreciate what happened here. That is largely because it concerns the unity of the Trinity – which is itself one of the mysteries of our faith.
How can the unity of the Trinity be broken? How can the Father turn away from His Son? How can these two Persons of the God-head, who have loved each other from all eternity, experience this separation? And where is the Holy Spirit in all this? Did He also leave Jesus in his hour of need? How can there be any disharmony in the harmony and unity of the Godhead?
No one can answer these questions. People have tried. Theologians have stammered their way through possible solutions. But no one really knows. Here is a mystery that we have to leave alone.
William Hendrikson has tried to illustrate what happened here by describing a young child who is very ill and needs surgery. The child is too young to understand what is wrong with him or why he needs to have this operation. His parents love him very much but they cannot be with him during the surgery nor can they be with him in intensive care following the operation. The little boy feels very alone. He misses the presence of his mother and father. He feels abandoned and he cries out for his parents who are not there.
In some similar way Jesus had to go through this suffering and alienation from his Father in heaven. It was necessary. But he felt this abandonment. The difference is that Jesus understood why he had to do this. He understood what was happening. He had planned this with the Father and the Holy Spirit. It had a purpose.
Let’s turn to that now and examine what Jesus meant by these words. Then we’ll consider how they apply to us.
Firstly, then, THEIR MEANING:
In these hours of darkness on the cross Jesus was suffering the judgment of God and the torment of hell. God the Father turned away from his Son because this was the punishment for sin. This is what was happening to Jesus – he was experiencing God’s wrath, not for his own sin, but for our sin. This is why God abandoned him for this time. This is what hell is – it is to be separated from the grace and the goodness of God. This is why he went through this terrible isolation, symbolised by the darkness of those three hours.
This is how we understand the Apostles’ Creed when it describes how Jesus ‘descended into hell’. Many people misunderstand the meaning of this statement and think that Jesus actually went to hell after he died. But the creed is not giving us a chronological account at this point; it is not describing a time sequence. Jesus did not go to hell when he died. Rather, the moment Jesus died he went to be with his Father in heaven.
Think of Jesus’ words to the man next to him: ‘Today you will be with me in paradise.’ Think of his final words before he died: ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.’ The moment Jesus died he went to be with his Father in heaven.
This phrase in the creed describes his intense sufferings while he was on the cross – during those three hours of darkness he went through the agonies of hell. He suffered the wrath and judgment of God for sin. During these hours of darkness Satan once again came to attack and tempt Jesus. He had done this when Jesus was in the wilderness before he took up his ministry. He had confronted Jesus during his ministry, especially through all his evil spirits.
In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus had wrestled with temptation, praying that God would take this cup of suffering from him. As the time of the crucifixion grew near, Jesus was aware that this was the hour of darkness; this was when darkness would reign; this was when Satan would strike his heel – as promised way back in the Garden of Eden. This time had arrived – he was in it.
Jesus was suffering all this because of the sin of his people. Jesus did not die on the cross for his own sin and wrongdoing but for ours; for our sin and disobedience and rebellion against God. He took the punishment you and I deserved to suffer. He took the curse of sin on himself.
This was expressed in prophecy by the prophet Isaiah: ‘Surely he took up our infirmities, and carried our sorrows…
He was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities…
We all like sheep have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way,
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.’ (Is 53:4-6)
Our hymns also reflect this truth:
Who was the guilty?
Who brought this upon thee?
Alas, my treason, Jesus hath undone thee!
‘Twas I Lord Jesus, I it was denied thee;
I crucified thee. (Ps H 351:2)
And,
What thou my Lord hast suffered,
Was all for sinners gain,
Mine, mine, was the transgression,
But thine the deadly pain. (Ps H 355:3)
It was this that provoked this cry from our Lord. It is not that he was afraid of death itself. He had urged his disciples, ‘Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but who cannot kill the soul’ (Mt 10:28). Nor was he even so afraid of the pain of the crucifixion. Many people died by this cruel death. It was not the physical suffering of Jesus that was unique; rather it was his spiritual suffering – that he was forsaken by God – that he bore our punishment in his own body and soul. This suffering for Jesus was intensified because he had always lived so close to his Father.
Think of a child who is very close to her parents and has never been away from home who is suddenly kidnapped and locked away in a terrible prison. This is the sort of dramatic change of situation we need to consider with Jesus. He was the Second Person of the Trinity. He was the eternal Son of His Father. He was the Son of God. He had been in heaven with God the Father from all eternity. He had enjoyed the beauty and glory and perfection of heaven for all time.
Yet he had come down to earth – to a world of sin and evil. He had been despised and rejected by men. He had been misunderstood and ridiculed. He had been put to death by evil men. And now he was separated from his Father. When he cried out to his Father from the cross he received no answer. He was alone. The Father was not with him. He sensed this distance. He did not even address God as ‘Father’ but rather as ‘God’. He was forsaken by God.
Yet even though God had abandoned him, Jesus did not lose hope. He still prayed to his God. He cried out to him. His Father in heaven was still God, and he was still ‘MY God’! Jesus still looked to his Father in Heaven. He still believed in him. His words were an expression of his trust in God his Father. Here are words of faith out of the darkness. Jesus did not lose his grip on God. Here is a cry to the Lord from the depths of despair. So although he was forsaken, he kept his faith. He knew all this was planned. It had a purpose, a reason.
Let’s now consider THE APPLICATION of these words to us.
This cry from the cross shows us the terrible consequences of sin. All those who continue to live in sin and selfishness and pride will face the punishment of hell. They will have to live away from God for all eternity. They will be abandoned by God the Father. They will experience all the horrors of being alone and will experience this forever.
Here is a reason to repent and believe. Some might say I am trying to frighten you into believing. In a sense that is true. Parents do this when they warn their children about the hot elements on an electric stove, or about boiling water in the kettle or the bath. The police warn young people of the horrific dangers of speeding and the consequences of this. In the same way the Bible warns us about the consequences of continuing in rebellion against God – that will end in hell. Now is the time to turn away from living for your own selfish pleasure and turn to live for the Lord.
If you do that, and if you have done that, then these words of Jesus assure you of the forgiveness of your sins. Jesus died on the cross for the sins of his people. He took your punishment. He died in your place. He died so you could be forgiven.
One of the famous Easter Hymns puts it like this:
We may not know, we cannot tell,
what pains he had to bear,
but we believe it was for us,
he hung and suffered there.
This is what we remember regularly in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. We do this in remembrance of him and as a reminder of the forgiveness we have.
Finally this reminds us that God is always present with us.
There are times when you feel alone. Your family may be far away, you may feel as though you have no friends, you may feel lonely and isolated. There are even times when you may feel separated from God – as though God was far away – at a distance.
You may feel like the Sons of Korah who wrote Psalm 42:
‘When can I go and meet with God?
Why are you downcast O my soul?
I say to God my Rock, why have you forgotten me?’
But the person who believes in Jesus and has received God’s forgiveness and knows God’s love, is never alone. Jesus was forsaken by the Father so that the Father would never forsake you. Jesus was abandoned by God so that God would never leave you on your own. Jesus has been through hell so that you can go to heaven. The Father turned away from the Son so that He could turn towards us in love.
If you believe in Jesus then, no matter what you are going through, you can be sure that God the Father is with you, watching over you, taking care of you.
If you trust in Jesus, you are never going to be on your own.
Amen.