Today we come to the fourth week of our series on the Seven Statements from the Cross. Last week we saw Jesus entrust his mother to John, John would become her son, and her, his mother. We saw through their total obedience what kinds of sacrifice obedience can require of a family, spiritual and physical. The statement that we will look at today reflected an agony that the other statements didn’t seem to show. Even though throughout the whole process we know that He had to be in complete physical agony, this statement showed the complete mental and spiritual agony that He was in at the moment He made this statement.
Matthew 27:45,46
The darkness that came over the land for those three hours had to have been an eerie feeling. I believe that darkness was not only a physical darkness but also a spiritual darkness. I truly believe that it was an act of God. Maybe it was a sign of judgment to the Jews for what they were doing. Some people might say, “Could it have not been an eclipse?” It could not have been an eclipse because the moon was full at Passover time. But it was in that third hour that Jesus said, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus spoke it in Aramaic. Jesus probably spoke at least three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek. It is believed that Jesus more commonly spoke in Aramaic. It’s amazing when you look at Psalm 22 how it goes along with so much of the crucifixion story. The first verse of that Psalm was Jesus’ statement here. It has been suggested by many that Jesus was simply repeating that Psalm to himself as a picture of his own situation. Of course that Psalm ends on a very high note of trust and confidence in God. Just as this situation would end on a very high note three days later and Christ did know that. Bible scholar William Barclay said, “It is an attractive suggestion; but on a cross a man does not repeat poetry to himself, even the poetry of a psalm…” Then again this wasn’t any ordinary man. Jesus quoted scripture for everything else in His life, he certainly could have been again. But I do believe that at that moment that sins of the world were thrust upon Christ. In that time that he who had no sin became sin, it brought him separation from His Father. Sin separates us from God. Isaiah told the people in Isaiah 59:2 “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you.” His Father had hidden His Face from Him as He took on the sin of the world. It was an agonizing feeling for the one who lived in total intimacy with His Father, depending on Him each step of the way. How many times did we see Jesus trying to sneak off and be alone with His Father. How many times did He pray to His Father to seek the strength he needed. As painful as the physical cruelty of the cross was, I believe the pain of isolation from his Father during that time hurt him more than any nail piercing His skin. But I don’t believe the pain stopped with Christ, can you imagine how hard it was on the Father to have to turn away as His son paid the price for us. As this statement speaks of the isolation and loneliness that Christ was experiencing. I just want to remind you of the reasons why Christ was separated from His Father.
Christ was separated from his Father because of your sin and mine. Isaiah spoke to the day of Christ taking on our sins hundreds of years in advance. Listen to what he said in Isaiah 53:4,5 “Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities…” Being crushed I don’t believe was just physical, but it was spiritual as well as he felt His Father turn from Him. Now I know that I already mentioned that his separation came from taking on the sins of the world. But when we say the sins of the world that can be so impersonal that we lose perspective on our part of it. The truth is that Christ experienced this pain and isolation on the cross because of your sin, and my sin. Each of us played a part of Him being on that cross and experiencing that isolation from His Father. Christ not only paid the price for the sins of those who had gathered around the Cross and mocking him, or those who had abandoned him and denied him at the hour of his greatest need for support, but the price He paid went all the way to thousands of years later. Christ wasn’t only doing it for the present but He was doing it for the future. He knew that there would be other people who would sin and God is a just God. There has to be a price for those sins. But what Christ did covered not only the sins that we have committed in our lives so far, but if we fall in the future, if we do something we shouldn’t have done, if we allow our minds to become captive to thoughts that we shouldn’t have, those sins have been covered when in repentance we trust in Christ and what He did for us. When you truly think about what your sin and my sin caused Christ to have to go through, not only physically, but also spiritually, there is no way that you cannot hate sin if you truly love Christ. I remember those times of separation that I’ve gone through. I remember when I was 18 years old and my parents took me down to Warner Southern College. I was all excited. I couldn’t wait to have fun and to meet new people. I couldn’t wait to hit the beach. I was fortunate I had four people from my youth group who also went to my high school that were already students there. So I would know someone. But the day my mom and dad left to go back home without me. In my heart tears were streaming down my face, and even though there were a handful of people I already knew, I felt so alone. I wanted to say, “wait, I’ve changed my mind. I want to go with you.” The highway that the college sat on went all the way through my hometown in Lexington, just like highway 60 that we have here does as well. There were so many times during that first couple of months that I just wanted to start walking that highway and go home. Some of you have gone through separation from your earthly dad or other family members and you remember the pain that you felt and some of you might still be feeling. As much as that separation brought agony to you, the agony that Christ went through was so much worse. And it was our sin that brought it upon Him.
Christ was separated from His Father so we wouldn’t have to be. Christ went through that period of separation from His Father so we could live life in intimacy and fellowship with God. You see at the beginning of creation things were the way they were supposed to be. Adam and Eve walked in fellowship with God in the midst of a beautiful garden. But when they sinned that fellowship and intimacy with God was broken. We are told that when they heard the Lord God coming they hid from Him among the trees of the garden. They went from intimacy and looking forward to their walks with God to hiding from him because they knew they had done wrong. We know how that is in our own life when we’ve disappointed someone we love, we don’t look forward to seeing that person. We don’t want to see the disappointment and hurt on their face. Sometimes, thanks to that nature we’ve inherited, when we’ve blown it with God, especially when we repeat a mistake, unfortunately we do our best avoid God imitation. We don’t want to go before him because we are mad at ourselves, we are embarrassed. Which is the wrong way to handle it. But thanks to Adam and Eve, man’s relationship with God was ruined. But Christ was the answer to Adam’s mistake. Listen to what Romans 5:19 “For just as through the disobedience of one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of one man the many will be made righteous.” Through the obedience of Christ, taking on our sin upon himself, those who trust upon Him will be made righteous. Which means that we can be in the presence of God in intimate fellowship. We don’t have to wait until our death to be in intimate fellowship with God either. We can have that intimate fellowship with Him now. Just as Christ constantly sought to get away from the crowds and the demands on His time and seek strength and fellowship with His Father. We can do that same thing, we can seek that strength and fellowship with the Father that comes through an intimate relationship with Him because when we trust in Christ and believe that he bore our sins on the cross we are righteous in the eyes of God. But Christ did face that terrible time of separation from His Father so that we could be in fellowship not only on this earth but with eternity. I can’t remember who said it, whether it was Max Lucado or Blackaby, but someone said it and I like it, “God created us for eternity.” He created us to spend the rest of forever with Him. He created us not for what we can do for Him now, but He created us so that we can spend the rest of forever in fellowship with Him. Maybe it will be like those long walks in the garden that He used to have with Adam and Eve. God wants to fellowship with you now, and He wants to fellowship with you forever. And because of that great love for us, Christ went through that period of separation from His Father so you and I don’t have to. Some of you are walking through life with separation from God now and you know that you aren’t enjoying life the way that you could. You’re doing your best run and hide routine from God. Christ went through that agony so you wouldn’t have to be separated from God. There is no better time than this morning to let what Christ did be that bridge that brings you back to the Father.
Something that I read from William Barclay this week kind of helped me to see what Christ did in a different perspective. Christ was separated from his Father to show us that He has experienced the very worst of the human condition. Now we know from scriptures that Christ came and he walked this earth and he experienced every temptation that was common to man. After all Hebrews 4:15 “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin.” I got to thinking about that scripture and the human condition. Christ experienced everything that you and I have experienced in one form or another. As hard as it is to believe that means that Christ would have faced sexual temptation, he would have faced the temptation to do things in a different way then His heavenly Father wanted him to do it. All of us have been tempted to do things our own way instead of doing things the way God would have us to do them. The list of temptations go on and on. You name the temptation and I believe that Christ probably had that temptation in one way or another. Sin hasn’t really changed from Biblical times, Satan just uses new packages for the same old things. It may really look different on the outside, but inside it’s the same old lie and the same old things. But there is one major difference between us and Christ. He never did bite! He never sinned! And as we said earlier, sin brings us separation from God. Being separated from God is the very worst thing of the human condition. Those who choose to walk through life not accepting what Christ did on the cross for us are walking this earth with a separation from God. That is something that up to that point Christ had not experienced. Like we said earlier, we see repeatedly in scripture where Christ went and spent time in fellowship with His Father. I believe it was His dependence upon and fellowship with the Father that strengthened Christ and enabled him to live a sinless life. But Christ had never faced separation from his Father until He who had no sin became sin. And at that moment he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I believe you can almost sense the separation in His words. He never called his Father, My God. It was always “my Father, or maybe even Abba, which the closest translation is daddy. Yes, you see when Christ was on the cross and he took on himself, your sin and my sin and the sin of the world, he had to feel the filth and the dirt of the world. To someone who was so pure and holy because He was God in the flesh it had to be a total feeling of dirt. But because Christ did take on the sins of the world and because of that sin that He willingly took upon himself, He was separated from His Father because His Father could not abide with sin. The very worst experience of the human condition Christ had now experienced what sinful separation from His Father must be like. So you see Christ really has experienced the very worst that the human condition has to offer. But He paid the price for those sins of ours and now we can be victorious over sin and death just like He was. What a great God we serve! How can anyone question God’s love for us.
This really is one of life’s great mysteries. Someone might ask, if Christ was fully human and yet fully God, how did God forsake God? It’s hard to fathom it all isn’t it? But we understand enough to know that God loved us so much that He gave us His only begotten Son that who ever believes in Him will not die.”
This morning as we close, may we remember the pain and the cry in that statement from Christ on the cross. He went through that sheer agony of being separated from His Father so you and I would never have to be separated from His Father. Yet, so many people are walking around in sin and broken fellowship with God. It doesn’t have to be that way. Christ went through that agony for you, don’t make what Christ did pointless in your life. Christ wants to be that bridge that brings you to fellowship with his Father. Why don’t you cross that bridge this morning. Let’s pray.
