Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, “This man is calling for Elijah.” Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave Him a drink. But the rest of them said, “Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him.” And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, “Truly this was the Son of God!” [Matthew 27:45-54 NASB]
I think that when Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” that was the moment He took our sin upon Himself. In that moment, He felt the separation from God that results from sin.
Although Jesus was tempted in every way like us, He lived a sinless life.
For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need. [Hebrews 4:15-16 NASB]
God came to live among us as a man. He was born a baby, grew through childhood and adolescence to adulthood. He lived the complete human experience, and knows what it is like to be human. There was only one thing lacking.
Throughout His life, Jesus never knew the separation from God that all of humanity feels because of our sin. On the cross, He experienced, for the first time, the shame, guilt and fear that accompanies sin. The Father was always present in Jesus' life, but then He felt abandoned. It must have been overwhelming; a torture far worse than the cross. It's no wonder that Jesus cried out.
I don't believe that God the Father ever truly abandoned His Son. Only it was the separation caused by sin that made Jesus feel abandoned.
We are born into this world with a sinful nature. When we confess Jesus as Lord, and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead, then we are born again. The Holy Spirit lives within us, and allows us to have communion with God. When Jesus died, the veil enclosing the holy place in the temple was torn in two. Symbolically, this means that God no longer meets people in a temple. Instead, He inhabits our hearts, so that we are all the temple.
When we continue to sin, we bring upon ourselves the guilt and shame of sin, and we experience anew the separation. God doesn't leave us. He doesn't abandon us. But because of sin, we feel separated from Him.
Jesus, our High Priest, knows how we feel. Because of His sacrifice, we need only to come to God in repentance, and we will find that He is there, and has always been there for us.
When we learn that sin has been overcome in our lives, and we no longer live in it, we can walk through life in the Spirit, in communion with God.
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