Devotions this week will touch on an event which took place on this day of Holy Week.
Forsaken.
Heartache strikes when a relationship breaks up and at least one, if not both of the individuals feel all alone.
Emptiness ensues when you think a friend has your back and they don’t show up when you need them most.
Frustration occurs when you feel you have been a follower of Christ for a very long time and when life throws you a curveball, you feel like he is nowhere to be found.
When we feel forsaken and abandoned it is a scary, helpless feeling. We crave the companionship of someone who cares, someone who can help, someone we can count on.
When we are forsaken, we are all alone.
Jesus had a handful of followers at the foot of the cross. Most of his followers had fled for fear they would be captured and put on the cross next.
Abandoned and betrayed by friends hurts, but to suffer abandonment from God himself is hell itself.
Matthew 27:45 From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
47 When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”
48 Immediately one of them ran and got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, and offered it to Jesus to drink. 49 The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”
50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
Darkness was indicative of the intensity of the suffering Jesus was undergoing. The only reason one would be forsaken by God is because of sin. While Jesus was perfect of himself, he willingly had the sins of the world laid on him. Isaiah 53:6 reminds us,
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.
Jesus hung on the cross with the conviction of the sin of all people and the punishment that all sin deserved: separation from God.
Jesus was being treated by his Father as we deserved to be treated. He bore the sins of the world and the justice of God. As a result, he was forsaken by God. Left alone to bear the punishment for sin, suffering in darkness, suffering alone. He pointed those who heard to Psalm 22:
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, and am not silent.
The amazing reality is that he did this for you and me. Nothing worse could happen to us than being abandoned by God forever in hell. Yet, the heart of love Jesus had for each of us led him, on this Good Friday, to suffer hell, suffer being forsaken by God so we would never have to.
Apply: When have you felt abandoned? What do you think it would feel like to be abandoned by God? Take time to thank the Lord Jesus for suffering abandonment so you would not have to.
Prayer: Lord Jesus, thank you for your suffering and death, a gift we can hardly fathom, but truly appreciate. Today is Good because you made it so. AMEN.