Have you ever felt abandoned and completely alone? Maybe you’ve even questioned the goodness of God in the midst of your distress. We tend to have a strong sense of justice, until negative circumstances start to befall us. Then we pull out our exemption excuses and start to blame God for our trouble.
Well, if you’ve ever questioned God, you’re in good company and more like Christ than you realized. As Jesus was hanging on the cross, Mark records for us that Jesus cried out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
What was Jesus experiencing on the cross? Certainly there was the physical pain from the torture He endured. And there was definitely a sense of betrayal as the people He came to serve had abandoned Him. There was humiliation as He hung naked and exposed between two thieves who also mocked Him. But none of that compared to the weight of God’s wrath that He endured on our behalf. “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities.”
But why was Jesus forsaken? What’s the answer to His final words before His death in the Gospel of Mark? “Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Timothy Keller says, “Jesus was truly forsaken so that you would only ever feel forsaken.” We will never experience the wrath of God because Christ endured it on our behalf.
Today is a day of meditating on what Christ has accomplished for us. It is through His death that we are given life. Therefore, as Christ died for us, we ought also to live for Him. As you meditate on Christ sacrifice today, know the answer to Jesus question. He was forsaken, so that you might be redeemed. Let the redeemed of the LORD say so!