My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

How many of us feel alone? Set apart, abandoned. How many of us live a lonely life? Without someone we can truly trust, someone we can truly count on. And worst of all, it is when we feel that we have been abandoned by God Himself. Jesus felt and experienced this.

Mark 15:34- And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which, translated, means, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

God is not evil, He is good, rich in mercy. But if God is good, why did He abandon Jesus?

To answer this question, we must understand that humanity has sinned, deliberately choosing to turn away from a Holy and Pure God, a God who cannot tolerate wickedness or sin, and that Holiness and Purity cannot coexist with wickedness and sin.

THE WRATH OF GOD

Because God is holy and cannot tolerate evil and sin, God will be angry in a holy way, an anger that we can call judgement or sentence, and as the Bible says, the wages of sin is eternal death, complete separation from the Holy God.

The wrath of God is often misinterpreted, leading people to think that God is evil, but this is absurd. We can understand the wrath of God in a simple way through a story:  

Let us imagine that there was a very good person who was extremely beloved by all the residents of a certain town. This person helped everyone, was pure in everything they did, and there was no evil in them. But one day, a criminal murdered this person. The next day, the news appeared in the newspapers and all the residents were angry. They wanted justice to be done, they wanted the criminal to be convicted for the crime he had committed against that person. The residents then pursued the matter until justice was done, thus calming their anger at the evil that the criminal had done.

Just as the residents expressed their anger against evil, wishing that the guilty party would be punished for the crime he had committed, so God expresses His wrath against all evil deeds.

THE FORGIVENESS OF SINS AND THE SACRIFICE OF CHRIST

For years, in the Old Testament, innocent animals, that is, animals without sin, were sacrificed so that God’s wrath could be directed at these animals, thus forgiving human sins.

The problem is that animal blood does not have enough power to save anyone, so it was necessary to have the perfect sacrifice, the sacrifice of God’s own Son, Jesus Christ! The Lamb who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus Christ was the perfect sacrifice because there was no sin in him; after all, he was the Son of God himself.

Isaiah 53:4 says, “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.”

In other words, the punishment and suffering that would have been directed at all of us because of our sins was imputed to Christ. Jesus Christ suffered what we should have suffered, bearing all the wrath of God that we should have borne.

Because Jesus Christ took our sins upon Himself, God, being pure and holy, abandoned Him at that moment, because justice had to be done.

So, answering the initial question, why did God abandon Jesus?

God abandoned Jesus, leaving him alone so that YOU would never be alone again.

And that is the truth that should comfort your heart! Christ took upon Himself EVERYTHING that separated you from GOD, so no matter how much it may seem like it, GOD WILL NEVER ABANDON YOU!

Hebrews 13:5- Let your life be free from greed, being content with what you have; for he himself said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’

Even if everyone abandons you, Jesus promised that He would never abandon you.

Jesus was left alone, so that you would never be alone again.

Lay your burdens at the foot of the cross, draw closer to Him, and He will draw closer to you.