Shorter than usual this week. As we draw closer to the end, to the last of the last words from the cross, it seems as though too many words would be inappropriate. Like someone talking on their cell phone in church. Like someone making jokes in tragic moment. Or like when someone gets on one knee and takes your hand and then tells you they never loved you at all.
Sometimes when you've come to expect one thing and are presented with the opposite it throws you for a loop. It is startling, to say the least. It could be a good thing when something ends up better than you expected. Or it could be a bad thing when something or someone lets you down. Being crossed up can leave you feeling left in the lurch, can leave you feeling abandoned.
Our Fourth Word from the Cross seems to speak of that same sense of abandonment. But perhaps something deeper is going on here. Listen up:
Matthew 27:45-49 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 46 And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 47 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "This man is calling for Elijah." 48 At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him."
Many commentators will point out that Jesus' words here are not original with the man on the cross. This is, in fact, a quote from Psalm 22. Some would argue then that it is interesting that Jesus has the presence of mind to quote a scripture in the midst of this excruciating death. Perhaps, it wasn't so excruciating after all. Perhaps he only seemed to be suffering. After all, he was God, wasn't he? So, how could God suffer?
This was the argument of the Docetists, a group who argued that the crucifixion was a ruse of a sort. It was only seeming, not reality. Of course this view did not win the day. The Docetists (from the Greek dokeo - to seem) were considered heretical by the early church. Jesus the Christ, the argument went, was fully human and fully divine. So, his death was real, his suffering was genuine. And this is why this death causes such awe.
Perhaps it was that in the midst of the agony of the cross, his mind went back to the lessons he had learned as a child. This might be an argument for teaching the memorization of scripture. The reservoir of knowledge that we can draw upon in times of crisis needs to be deep and wide, filled with all sorts of knowledge and experience. The psalms were that body of knowledge, that source of strength and wisdom. Jesus was quoting the scriptures for the sake of quoting. He was living the scriptures in that moment.
The one source of strength that Jesus relied upon every moment of his life, until this one, was the connection with God. For Jesus to bear our sin, for Jesus to walk where we walk, the final experience for him in this moment was that separation we feel from God. To die our death, he had to know how lonely, how disconnected we feel from God. He had to taste, to embrace that unknowing. And it wounded him. Maybe more than the nails, maybe more than the lash. The only way he knew to express his pain of losing that connection was to reach back to the words he knew by heart. The words that were spoken by a psalmist who was feeling the result of sin; who was wasting away from guilt and brokenness.
My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me? The darkness that begins the passage represents God's face turning away for that moment. It was from the darkness, more than the pain, that this shout of despair was heard.
There is no seeming here, there is only the surprising God who dies that we might live. Who was crossed up here? Was it the Christ who lost his grip on the Father? Or was it those of us who still expect our saviors to kill and not to die?
Sometimes when you've come to expect one thing and are presented with the opposite it throws you for a loop. It is startling, to say the least. It could be a good thing when something ends up better than you expected. Or it could be a bad thing when something or someone lets you down. Being crossed up can leave you feeling left in the lurch, can leave you feeling abandoned.
Our Fourth Word from the Cross seems to speak of that same sense of abandonment. But perhaps something deeper is going on here. Listen up:
Matthew 27:45-49 From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. 46 And about three o'clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?" that is, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" 47 When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, "This man is calling for Elijah." 48 At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drink. 49 But the others said, "Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him."
Many commentators will point out that Jesus' words here are not original with the man on the cross. This is, in fact, a quote from Psalm 22. Some would argue then that it is interesting that Jesus has the presence of mind to quote a scripture in the midst of this excruciating death. Perhaps, it wasn't so excruciating after all. Perhaps he only seemed to be suffering. After all, he was God, wasn't he? So, how could God suffer?
This was the argument of the Docetists, a group who argued that the crucifixion was a ruse of a sort. It was only seeming, not reality. Of course this view did not win the day. The Docetists (from the Greek dokeo - to seem) were considered heretical by the early church. Jesus the Christ, the argument went, was fully human and fully divine. So, his death was real, his suffering was genuine. And this is why this death causes such awe.
Perhaps it was that in the midst of the agony of the cross, his mind went back to the lessons he had learned as a child. This might be an argument for teaching the memorization of scripture. The reservoir of knowledge that we can draw upon in times of crisis needs to be deep and wide, filled with all sorts of knowledge and experience. The psalms were that body of knowledge, that source of strength and wisdom. Jesus was quoting the scriptures for the sake of quoting. He was living the scriptures in that moment.
The one source of strength that Jesus relied upon every moment of his life, until this one, was the connection with God. For Jesus to bear our sin, for Jesus to walk where we walk, the final experience for him in this moment was that separation we feel from God. To die our death, he had to know how lonely, how disconnected we feel from God. He had to taste, to embrace that unknowing. And it wounded him. Maybe more than the nails, maybe more than the lash. The only way he knew to express his pain of losing that connection was to reach back to the words he knew by heart. The words that were spoken by a psalmist who was feeling the result of sin; who was wasting away from guilt and brokenness.
My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me? The darkness that begins the passage represents God's face turning away for that moment. It was from the darkness, more than the pain, that this shout of despair was heard.
There is no seeming here, there is only the surprising God who dies that we might live. Who was crossed up here? Was it the Christ who lost his grip on the Father? Or was it those of us who still expect our saviors to kill and not to die?
Shalom,
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment