"Now from the
sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth
hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, "Eli, Eli, la’ma sabach-tha’ni?"
that is, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (RSV)
More than 780 years before it happened, the Prophet Amos recorded these
words: "In that day," declares the sovereign Lord, "I will make the sun go
down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight." Ancient Isaiah recorded these
words in the fifty-third chapter of his book: "Surely he has borne our griefs and
carried our sorrows ... smitten by God, and afflicted. He was wounded for our
transgressions ... bruised for our iniquities ... the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of
us all .... For the transgressions of my people he was stricken ... it was the will of the
Lord to crush him and cause him to suffer… the Lord makes his life a guilt
offering."
With the above inspired words as a backdrop, hear the fourth word from
the Cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Hear and sense the agony
of Christ as expressed in these words. Understand them in the light of the above
prophesies. O, the agony of Christ! The words of the inspired St. Paul help us to
appreciate that agony even more fully: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us,
so that in him we might become the righteousness of God." Christ bore our griefs,
carried our sorrows, bore our sin-guilt, and thereby made himself an offering to God that
would both please and satisfy God, and yes, assure our pardon before God, and our
reconciliation to God.
At the ninth hour the barrier of sin, our sin, that separated us from
our God, began to crumble. At the ninth hour hope began to shine forth for us, and with
St. Paul we are able to proclaim with confidence and assurance: "I am persuaded that
neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor
things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other creature shall be able to separate us
from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus, our Lord."
Prayer: O Lord, for enduring the agony of our sin upon the cross, and
thereby winning our pardon before God, and our reconciliation to God, we give you our
heartfelt thanks. Amen.
