After three hours of midday darkness, the crowds heard the thunderous words of Jesus, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (Mark 15:34).  Some standing there misunderstood the Aramaic Eloi as a call for Elijah.  Even today, I wonder how well we understand the words, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”  We often sing how “the Father turned His face away,” with “God estranged from God,” and yet the original psalm has the Messiah Himself singing how God has not “hidden His face” from the afflicted Messiah (Psalm 22:24; cf. Hebrews 2:12).  How can this be?  What is the meaning of this so-called cry of dereliction?

According to New Testament scholar Peter Bolt, modern theologians often sidestep the difficulty of Jesus’ cry.  Perhaps He felt abandoned by God, but was not.  Perhaps Jesus despaired at “human unresponsiveness” but remained optimistic about God’s responsiveness.  According to Schleiermacher, the father of liberalism, Jesus was calmly and cheerfully looking forward to His departure.  And yes, if Jesus has the rest of the psalm in mind, which would not be far-fetched for a quote (cf. John 10:34 and Psalm 82:6), He knows deliverance is coming—but at the beginning of the psalm, God is distant: “Far from My deliverance are the words of My groaning” (Psalm 22:1b).

This idea of distance occurs strategically in Psalm 22, with the word “far” dividing it neatly into three sections—past (vv. 1-10), present (vv. 11-18), and future (vv. 19-31), with time measured from the moment of the cross.  Regarding the past, just as the fathers trusted in God and were delivered, so the Messiah has trusted in God from birth.  Why then is He not delivered as well?  Regarding the present, He is surrounded by bulls and dogs, which apparently depict the Jewish leaders and the Roman soldiers, respectively.  The bulls mock Him, but the dogs have “pierced [His] hands and [His] feet” (v. 16).  They even divide His garments and cast lots for His clothing—a clear reference to the cross (v. 18; cf. Mark 15:24).  Again, we ask, where is God?  Why has He abandoned this One who is trusting in Him?  Then, just when we are left crying out with the Messiah, “Be not far off,” in statements that recount the bulls and the dogs, we hear Him announce, “You answered Me!” (vv. 19-21).  This English sentence is a single word in Hebrew and it is abrupt.  The rest of the psalm flows in exuberantly cheerful praise.  Truly, the sun has come out again!

In its context, what does this cry of dereliction mean?  Let us first consider its form and then its content.

First, in form, the cry is more of a protest than a question.  Similar in form to Acts 9:4, where Jesus says, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” the cry acknowledges an external fact, but protests that there is no good reason for the fact.  Just as Job could find no reason in himself for the pain that he gratuitously experienced, so also here, the Messiah can find no reason in Himself for the distance and unresponsiveness He is experiencing.  After all, He has always trusted in God.  There is no good reason why He, of all people, should find God distant.

But wait a minute—we know the reason why Jesus suffered.  It was sin—our sin—that turned the Father’s face away!  In racing too quickly to the theological meaning, we miss the historical point.  Jesus Himself tells us to learn this lesson from the cross: “[God] has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has he hidden His face from him; but when he cried to Him for help, He heard” (v. 24).  Just as Job thought, due to his outward circumstances, that God was angry with him, when God was actually proud of Job, so we too must not conclude by God’s delay in answering the Messiah that God was somehow angry with Him personally or displeased.  God did not despise Him nor hide His face from the Messiah in His time of need.  On the contrary, God answered Him (v. 21).  And when we bear our cross, we too will need to recount this lesson and take it to heart.

All this, of course, still leaves the cry of protest unanswered.  Why did God abandon the Messiah?  As a protest, it is so human.  He asks, Why?  Is this not how we often respond in our grief—with a “why” question—albeit more with accusation than with trust?  Truly, the Messiah can sympathize with our weaknesses (Hebrews 2:18; 4:15).  And this similarity, this solidarity, leads us to our second point regarding its content.  My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? is the cry of a human being to His God.  The cry of Golgotha is far different than the cry of Gethsemane, when Jesus prayed, “Abba!  Father!” (Mark 14:36).  Yes, the divine person of the Son is the same in both locations, but we should not imagine any disruption in the Trinity during the sufferings of Jesus on the cross.  Please bear with me as I recount a few things with you.

According to the gospel narrative, Jesus definitely experienced the wrath of God on the cross.  Peter Bolt detects in the gospel of Mark the following signs of God’s wrath: mockery (Psalms 22:6-8; 89:38-41), darkness (Deuteronomy 28:29; Isaiah 59:10), a cup and a baptism (Psalm 69), and crucifixion itself (Deuteronomy 21:23; cf. Galatians 3:13).  Even the opening of Psalm 22 speaks of God being distant and unresponsive to the Messiah’s roaring—a literal translation from the Hebrew (v. 1).  Both by day and by night, the cry is unanswered (v. 2).  Could this be a reference to both the hours of darkness, a midday night, along with the daylight that followed, when Jesus cried out twice “with a loud voice” (Mark 15:34, 37)?  So unusual was this loudness, apparently, that the Roman centurion concluded from “the way [Jesus] breathed His last” that “this man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39).  In crucifixion, breathing is labored.  The victim must push up to exhale—hence, breaking the legs would lead to death by suffocation.  This fact makes Jesus’ roaring even more remarkable!  Jesus loudly and believingly protested the divine distance in the midst of divine judgment.

In pondering this scene, we must not conclude that the Father was somehow angry with His Son personally, as if His eyes were too pure to behold His face.  On the contrary, God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself through making Him who knew no sin to be sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:19, 21).  If the Father, because He is God, could not look at the Son bearing sin, then how could the Son Himself, also as God, bear it?  Surely, the Father and the Son were both working together to punish our sin on the cross.  Please note this union in our redemption.  If the Father delivered up His Son to crucifixion, so also the Son delivered up Himself (Romans 8:32; Galatians 2:20; cf. Titus 2:14).  If the Father was pleased to crush the Messiah due to our sin, so also the Messiah was pleased to render Himself as a guilt offering, which implies death (Isaiah 53:10).  If the Father loved us and sent His Son as a propitiation for our sin, so also the Son loved us and laid down His life for us (1 John 4:10; John 15:12-13).  It is an old theological adage that there is no division in the Godhead regarding any of His works done outside of Himself (ad extra).  The triune God is wholly united in all His works—the three Persons operate in perfect unity and union (cf. John 10:30).  Therefore, we must not imagine any disunity between God the Father and God the Son during the dark horrors of the cross.  Both the Father and the Son were punishing our sin in Christ.  Yes, the divine Jesus spoke to His Father in the cry of dereliction, but He addressed Him as “My God,” not “My Father.”  God was punishing human sin in the man Christ Jesus.

As Christians, it can become tempting for us to imagine that somehow the Father alone needed to be placated in His anger towards us, and the loving Jesus stood in the gap to represent us before the angry God.  In his excellent book, The Whole Christ, theologian-pastor Sinclair Ferguson rightly notes that this image of the Father needs to change.  Jesus said, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father” (John 14:9).  As both the Word and Image of God, Jesus perfectly explains the invisible God to us on our level, in human terms (John 1:18).  Yes, the Father displays wrath towards our sin, but so does the Messiah, as the psalms rightly warn us (e.g. Psalm 2:12).  And yes, the Messiah stepped in the gap for us, but the Father sent Him in love to be our Mediator and propitiation.  We should then fear and love both the Father and the Son in power of the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Them both (cf. John 14:17, 23).  We should not imagine any division between the Father and Son during the cross.

Having considered then both the form and the content of the cry of dereliction, let us face its force head on.  There is no reason in the Messiah Himself for this divine distance.  Later, we learn that His God had not hidden His face nor despised His suffering Servant.  The reason for the distance lay elsewhere.  Again, why did God abandon the Messiah on the cross?  Interestingly, Psalm 22 gives no answer to that question.  In Mark, however, as pointed out to me recently by one of our small group members, the text simply says that Jesus’ last breath immediately preceded “the veil of the temple [being] torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:37-38).  Surely, this timing is significant.  The barrier between God and men—might we say the distance?—has been permanently destroyed by none other than God Himself, and the only reason lying close at hand for this permanent change in access involves the death of the Messiah.  If by the inspired text we hear “Why?” then by that same text we see why—a “new and living way” has been opened to us “through the veil, that it, His flesh” (Hebrews 10:20).  Hallelujah for the cross!

Sources: Peter G. Bolt, The Cross from a Distance: Atonement in Mark’s Gospel, New Studies in Biblical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2004), 116-45; Sinclair B. Ferguson, The Whole Christ: Legalism, Antinomianism, and Gospel Assurance—Why the Marrow Controversy Still Matters (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2016).

Years ago, I experimented with postures in prayer.  Instead of bowing my head and closing my eyes, I lifted my eyes to heaven, as Jesus did (John 17:1).  Instead of folding my hands, I lifted them, as the psalmist did (Psalm 141:2).  Instead of praying silently, I spoke or cried or shouted to God.  This audibility I had often found this in the psalms, but I had never taken it literally or seriously for myself.  At first, it felt awkward—even distracting—but eventually my own body language was prompting my spirit to be more free and open and joyful in prayer.  Form has a way of cuing us like that.

Now for some of you, it may seem legalistic to focus at all on posture in prayer—and if that was all that I was interested in, you would be correct.  However, let me ask you a question or two.  How often do you change your posture in prayer?  And if not, why not?  Routine itself can feel like a law.  And if it feels like a law, who is the lawgiver?

In day-to-day life, when do you naturally bow your head and decline to look someone in the eye?  Is it not when you are ashamed?  This shame may be appropriate at times, as when Ezra mourned the sins of his people (Ezra 9:6), but should it be our normal posture in prayer?  Body language is a language, so what are we communicating to God when we pray?

In Psalm 95, we are summoned to two postures of worship—the first is joyful and noisy; the second, reverent and submissive—and both are linked to truth about God.  In the first, it is objective truth about the size of God, that He is “a great God” and “a great King above all gods” (v. 3).  Literally, God is BIG.  He owns everything from Death Valley to Mount Everest.  He made the Atlantic and the Pacific and the continent in between, so that when we consider Him in contrast to all that humans worship, whether the gods of the East or the wealth of the West, He towers above them.  He alone is God of gods.

For such a God, wimpy worship will not do.

In contrast, the posture of reverent submission results from knowing that this big God is our God.  We “worship and bow down” and “kneel” because He is “our God and we are the people of His pasture” (vv. 6-7).  This is the subjective side of worship, and it has its own appropriate posture, the posture of kneeling, whether with hands or head lifted up or not.  Interestingly, the order makes sense.  It is the bigness of God that makes His careful, attentiveness to sinful, little me so amazing!  Finding such favor, should we not kneel and pour out grateful tears, as the forgiven prostitute did at the feet of Jesus (Luke 7:37-38)?

For such a God as ours, disobedience will not do.

Abruptly, once kneeling is mentioned, the psalm warns us: “Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts” (vv. 7-8).  Ultimately, posture is nothing, if my life does not practice what my body is preaching.  My body may kneel, but does my heart believe and obey?  Is this not the best posture of worship?

“The LORD builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the outcasts of Israel.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.

Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:2-5).

The healing of a hurting heart—between the gathering of a nation and the numbering of the stars.

How sympathetic that God acknowledges the challenge of a hurting heart!

How hopeful that God builds and heals and numbers, as One great in strength and infinite in mind!

But why would such a personal trait be placed between incidents of such magnitude?  Could it be that there is a connection—a flow of ideas, from one line to the next?

Let us start with the wonder of naming stars.  Beyond the fact that there must be a finite “number” of stars—though countless to our gaze—this act of naming stars speaks of the manifold majesty of God.  Not only can He make a countless number of stars, He can individually identify these stars, He can invent enough names for these stars, and He can keep track of which star has which name.  Like a shepherd who knows all his hundred sheep by name, the Lord knows all His starry host by name, and loses not one in the crowd.  That’s an amazing mind and eye!  To us, the countless stars of the heavens strike us as faces in a foreign crowd, with one face looking so much as the next.  To God, the stars are numbered and personally named.

Such an amazing power of mind and eye applies directly to the plight of the Jews.  Like the sand of the sea and the stars of heaven, the Jews have multiplied, in fulfillment of Abraham’s promise—but now they have been scattered to the winds!  Who has the power to see every one of the promised seed, and to gather them back?  Like Abraham staring at the night sky, hearing that such will be your seed, we too stare bewildered at such a task, unable to discern the wheat from the tares, or even to find where all the elect reside.  God knows.  He sees, even as He has numbered and named, and He will not lose one.

As amazing as this is, even such a feat could be done impersonally.  Like the draft, a notice could go out, the rosters read, and the names enrolled.  God, however, does not operate in that way.  As the One who not only stretched out the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth, He also formed the spirit of man within him, and He knows intimately all the working and ways of the human heart.  “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”  He counts to make sure they are all there, and He heals to make sure they are all well.

Christian, fellow pilgrim in passage to heaven, be assured that you will never be lost, and that you will never be ignored.  You are more than a number.  He knows your name and He knows your heart.  You will not always be broken.  He will come and He will heal; He will call you by name and you will come to Him.  He who knows the vastness of the universe also knows the vexations of your heart.  Take hold of this hope, and weep no more.

Astronomy is one of the traditional disciplines of a liberal arts education.  And yet, how many of us were actually taught about the stars or have given them much thought?  This is sad, because the stars have a lot to say.  The Bible says that the heavens declare the glory of God, night after night revealing knowledge and day after day pouring forth speech (Psalm 19:1-2).  So what are the stars saying to us?

For starters, the stars have a lot to say about size.  As an example, consider the lyrics of this song:

“One tear in the driving rain, one voice in a sea of pain;

Could the maker of the stars hear the sound of my breaking heart?”

—Tenth Avenue North, “Hold My Heart”

Could the sound of something so small catch the attention of someone so big as the Maker of Billions—especially when the billions are all making noise?  Billions of stars in space, billions of souls on earth.

Compared to God and the stars He has made, we are small.  Twice the psalmist asks:

“When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained;

What is man that You remember him, and the son of man that You visit him?” (Psalm 8:3-4).

“O LORD, what is man, that you remember him?  Or the son of man, that You visit him?

Man is like a mere breath; his days are like a passing shadow” (Psalm 144:3-4).

Both in space and in time, we are very small.

But if the skies have a lot to say about our size, relative to the stars, what about God?  The same stars that speak of our smallness also speak of His bigness—His greatness—and this thought gives us hope:

“The LORD builds up Jerusalem; He gathers the outcasts of Israel.

He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

He counts the number of the stars; He gives names to all of them.

Great is our Lord and abundant in strength; His understanding is infinite” (Psalm 147:2-5).

Now catch the reasoning of this psalm.  Three things are very numerous—the exiles scattered worldwide, the hearts broken inside, and the stars visible outside—yet God Himself is “great” (literally big), abundant in strength and infinite in mind.  He not only made the stars and knows the stars, He names the stars, which implies His ability to imagine a billion names and then assign a billion names without confusing one star with another or forgetting even one.  Such is our Sovereign Lord: infinite in understanding.

For Jews in exile, this was extremely good news.  In fulfillment to the promises given to their fathers, they were as numerous as the stars in the sky or as the sand upon the shore, and yet where were they now?  Had God lost track of them—one tear in the driving rain, one voice in a sea of pain?  No, the Maker of the stars could hear the sound of one breaking heart.  That thought is so precious.  Jesus has a lot of sheep, but, as our good and great Shepherd, He loses not one.  He calls each by name and will raise him up on the last day.  Every exile will come home.

Now let’s press the analogy inward.  When God told Abram to look up and to count the stars, saying, “So shall your seed be,” there were only so many stars visible to Abram’s vision.  Similarly, when God tells us that in the days of Solomon, the Jews were as numerous as the sand on the seashore, there were still only so many grains of sand available for examination.  Beneath the waves were myriads and myriads of sand granules, and as we now know, beyond the gaze of Abram were myriads and myriads of stars—and yet our God has each star named.  He knows the size and shape of every particular grain of sand.  And He knows the hurt and pain of each thought buried deep in our hearts, beneath the facial expressions we reveal to others.

We may be small compared to the stars, but God is big—He hears and heals each breaking heart.

Summed up in Sayings…

As sand is numerous on the earth, so stars are numerous in the heavens.

As sand on the shore, so stars in the sky.

Can we press the metaphor literally?  The metaphor speaks of an infinite amount, so God’s mind does know all.

The sand and the stars represent calculus—the infinite stars and the infinitesimal sand.

So too are the mysteries of theology—who can explain the infinite mind of God or the infinitesimal will of Adam?

Neither the mind of God in His sovereignty nor the will of Adam in his freedom can be parsed out in an algorithm.

So stars beyond our gaze and sands beneath the waves, so are thoughts behind our consciousness (Ps. 19:12).

Exiles worldwide, heartaches inside, and stars outside—the great God knows them all by name and loses none.

There are two basic reasons for worshipping the Lord: He is God and He is good.  Ironically, both of these words seem to be related in English, as in other European languages, almost as if to say, “God alone is the Good One”—something that Jesus Himself said.  Together, these two themes form the simple outline of Psalm 100:

“Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth!

Serve the LORD with gladness!  Come into his presence with singing!

        Know that the LORD, he is God!

        It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise!  Give thanks to him; bless his name!

        For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.”

Do you see the simple outline?

Be joyful, glad, and sing, knowing that the Lord is God.

Give thanks, praise, and bless, knowing that the Lord is good.

Are we?  Do we?

Interestingly, out of all the commands of the Bible, one would think that commands such as “Rejoice!” or “Be glad!” would be some of the easiest to obey.  Who would not want to be joyful?  And yet, in our everyday experience, joy is often elusive, and our loss of joy shows we have lost sight of God as God!  We need to know this afresh, and this becomes one of the chief reasons to come before Him, week after week, in public worship.

Another chief reason for coming to worship is thanksgiving.  Literally, the command is to make verbal confession about the Lord.  Public worship is a confession of faith.  If there is anything this psalm pushes against, it is a deer-stand Christians who refuses to come public with his faith, joining with fellow believers in united song.  There is no “moment of silence” here!

In thanking God, let us remember that God is good, not indulgent.  His eye is on the long-term that lasts “to all generations.”  Our faith must eye the same.

So there you go.  The Lord is God and the Lord is good.

Everything we have is from Him, and everything we have from Him is good.

Therefore, let us come and worship.

Above the seas—the land, and all it contains.
Above the land—the hill of the Lord, and its holy place.
Who may go up into this holy hill?
Who may stand in this holy place?
Only clean hands, a pure heart, and soul not lifted to idols.

The gates remain unlifted, for all have failed.

Above the seas, above the land, upon the hill—
Lift up the gates that the King of Glory may come in!
Who is this King of Glory?
The LORD, mighty in battle. The Warrior-King.

Above the seas, above the land, upon the hill—
Lift up the gates that the King of Glory may come in!
Who is this King of Glory?
The LORD Almighty. The God-Man, the King.

The gates remain uplifted, for Jesus has succeeded.