Why Have You Forsaken Me? by Colwell John E.;

Author:Colwell, John E.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Authentic Media

Chapter Six

Christ’s Unique Darkness

From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.

About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi,1 lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

When some of those standing there heard this, they said, “He’s calling Elijah.”

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. The rest said, “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to save him.”

And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.

At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus’ resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people.

When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, “Surely he was the Son2 of God!”.

(Matthew 27:45–54)

All human suffering is unique and particular: though others may suffer the same illnesses, the same pain, the same abuse, the same rejection, they suffer uniquely as the unique people that they are. But all human suffering is human: notwithstanding its particularity and uniqueness, there is an underlying commonality and continuity. The suffering of Christ, like all human suffering, was particular and unique, but it was the concern of the last chapter to argue, nonetheless, that his suffering was truly human suffering, common and continuous with all human suffering. Yet, Christ’s suffering was uniquely and particularly his and the precise nature of that particularity, I suspect, has issued in a further basis for removing his suffering from the continuity of our suffering, his cry of abandonment from our apparently similar cries. Part of the horror of so much human suffering is its apparent meaninglessness, its random pointlessness. Certainly virtues of fortitude, patience, hopefulness can be developed and matured through the experience of suffering – but generally in those who are virtuous in the first place and such secondary outcomes hardly justify suffering or render the meaningless meaningful. But Christ’s suffering was purposeful with quite specific meaning and outcome, ‘… the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many’ (Matthew 20:28; cf. Mark 10:45), and the recognition of this purposefulness tends to specify our hearing of his cry of abandonment and to render it again remote.

I suspect that it is almost impossible for contemporary Western Christians, or indeed any Western Christians since the Reformation, both Catholic and Protestant, to hear Christ’s cry of dereliction other than as a quite specific and unique event of forsakenness: on the Cross the sinless Son of God is made sin for

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