Luke 23:44-49; Matt. 27:45-49

Jesus was on the cross by 9AM.  From Noon to 3PM great darkness came over the area.  We know this was not an eclipse as Passover was at full moon and an eclipse occurs at new moon.  This was an unexplained, supernatural event.  This darkness during the brightest time of the day was supernatural in its timing.  The darkness manifested the Father’s forsaking His Son as we see from Jesus’ words.

Fourth: Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?  My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?                                                                                                  

This is the only time in the Gospel record of the life of Christ that He did not address God as Father.  These words from Psalm 22:1 come at the end of the time of darkness.  They tell us that the separation from His Father is full and complete.  The suffering, which was both physical and spiritual, is complete.  Cried is a term indicating deep emotion; “no dispassionate theological statement, but an agonized expression of a real sense of alienation” from His Father (RTF).

For the Father and Son to experience separation is mysterious in the sense that we cannot understand how this can be.  But it is not mysterious in terms of what sin does in any relationship with God.  Jesus was forsaken, a Greek term defined by Strong as totally abandoned, utterly forsaken.  It is clear that the sinless Son of God had a deep connection with sin while on the cross.  Consider these passages and words that describe that connection.

·        2 Cor. 5:21: God made Him Who knew no sin to be sin for us.  The words are critical.  Jesus knew no sin; He had no experiential knowledge of sin because He was sinless in His life.  But God made Him sin for us; it was God’s doing, the very One who would then utterly abandon His Son on the cross.  And He made Him sin for us.  This is huper, the Greek preposition that implies on behalf of.  It was Jesus vicarious experience, becoming sin in our place.

·        1 Peter 2:21-25; Lev. 16:21-22: Again, Jesus committed no sin, not even on the cross when He was reviled and suffering.  But on the cross He bore our sins in His own body.  The Greek ana-fero is the term to carry intensified with the prefix so as to mean bore up.  In the context of temple worship the term spoke of putting something up on the altar or bringing to the altar, a picture that fits the cross perfectly.  In sacrifice the worshiper places his hands on the animal as a symbolic transfer of his sins to the animal.  In the case of Jesus it was not symbolic; it was real.  He bore our sins on the tree.  The reference to the tree reminds us of Gal. 3:13; Christ redeemed us becoming a curse for us, for as the law says, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

While it may be mysterious how the Godhead can know separation by sin’s presence, it nevertheless happened.  It was our sin that created the problem.  It was the Son’s obedience that allowed it to happen.  And it was the Father’s love that necessitated it.  All praise to God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit!