Daily Devotional For Saturday, March 30, 2024

Every once in a while we all feel as if we are alone or abandoned. As we look at the seven last statements Christ made from the cross, the fourth statement Christ made is found in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34. 

• Matthew 27:46, “At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?” (NLT).
• Mark 15:34, "Then at three o’clock Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, My God, why have you abandoned mM?” (NLT).

Six hours have gone by since Jesus was nailed to the cross. Three sentences in three long hours. For the rest of that time, He hung there and suffered in silence. Three hours, and every minute must have seemed like an eternity. Then at noon, darkness covered the land according to Matthew 27:45, “At noon, darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock” (NLT). The ESV puts it this way, “Now from the sixth hour (Noon) there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour (3:00 PM).

For three hours Jesus had suffered pain and ridicule at the hands of men, but now He was plunged into something far worse. Jesus entered into all the dimensions of hell on the cross. Hell is conscious suffering, in blackest darkness, surrounded by demonic powers, under the judgment of God, beyond the reach of the love of God. Jesus endured all that hell on the cross. And He did this so that you would never know what it is like. 

Jesus’ fourth statement from the cross is to quote Psalm 22:1, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?” (ESV). To me, this fourth statement by Jesus was a miracle. Christian pastor and author John MacArthur puts it this way:

“Jesus was crying out in anguish because of the separation He now experienced from His heavenly Father for the first and only time in all of eternity. It is the only time of which we have record that Jesus did not address God as Father. Because the Son had taken sin upon Himself, the Father turned His back. That mystery is so great and imponderable that it is not surprising that Martin Luther is said to have gone into seclusion for a long time trying to understand it and came away as confused as when he began. In some way and by some means, in the secrets of divine sovereignty and omnipotence, the God-Man was separated from God for a brief time at Calvary, as the furious wrath of the Father was poured out on the sinless Son, who in matchless grace became sin for those who believe in Him” (Source: John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, “Matthew,” p. 270).

Jesus’ cry from Psalm 22:1 is a reflection and fulfillment of prophecy of what Psalm 22:14-18 states Jesus was feeling:

“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; (15) my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. (16) For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet— (17) I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; (18)  they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (ESV).

This was a dark time for Jesus. Why? This is when God put on Him all the sins of everyone in the past, His present, and the future —including your sin and my sin. So dark and overwhelming it was, Jesus cried out about it. Those standing by misunderstood Jesus’ cry. They thought He was calling for Elijah. Look at Mark 15:35, “Some of the bystanders misunderstood and thought He was calling for the prophet Elijah” (NLT). Jesus did not die as a martyr or due to some martyr complex for some righteous cause. Jesus did not die simply as an innocent man wrongly accused and condemned by the Jewish religious leaders and Romans. Jesus did not die as a hero for equal rights and equity among all people. God would not have abandoned Him for those reasons. The reason is: Jesus died as the substitutionary Lamb for the sins of the world and thus, God, the Father, had to judge Him completely for all that sin He took upon Himself on the cross.

God the Father temporarily abandoned the Son for the sin He took upon Himself. Look at:

• Isaiah 53:3a, “But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities” (ESV).
• Romans 4:25, “who was delivered up for our trespasses and raise for our justification” (ESV).
• 1 Corinthians 15:3, “For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures” (ESV).
• 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (ESV).
• Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”—(ESV).
• 1 Peter 2:24, “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed” (ESV).
• 1 Peter 3:18, “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring us to God, being put to death pin the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (ESV).
• 1 John 4:10, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins” (ESV).

What do all these verses above teach us? Jesus did not just bear our sins on the cross. He became sin on the cross for us so that we could be saved and redeemed from the penalty and judgment of our sin. Thus in becoming sin for us, for a temporary moment, Jesus, who has been sinless His whole life, experienced temporarily an abandonment of fellowship with the Father. I will not attempt to explain in detail what this was for Jesus because the mystery of it is too great for any of us to grasp. 

Sin separates us from God and causes us to be abandoned to our sin and its consequences if we did not have Christ. What Jesus experienced and felt on the cross is in some way what every single Christian should experience and feel when they sin against God. Instead of rationalizing our sin or justifying our sin or excusing our sin, we should be in anguish over our sin. Today, I do not find hardly any Christians in anguish over their sin.

Questions To Consider

1. When it comes to your own sin, are you heartbroken over it? In anguish over it? Why or why not? 
2. Jesus cried out from the cross for becoming sin — some of which was your sin. How does Jesus’ reaction compare to your reaction to your sin?
3. Sin separates. Sin hurts and harms. Sin creates barriers. What do you need to do to become more aware of what your own sin does to your relationship to Christ?

Scripture To Meditate On: Matthew 27:46b, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned Me?” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, I cannot imagine what You felt when You actually became sin on the cross due to my sin.  I cannot imagine what you felt when that fellowship with the Father was broken at that exact moment. Your response and anguish to sin should be mine as well. I am so sorry I am frivolous about my sin and at times am oblivious to my sin and its impact on myself, my relationship to You and to others. Please forgive me and help me to see sin as You do. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside! — Pastor Kelly