How Far Did God Forsake Jesus?

            Jesus says it on the cross.  "My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"  These words join Luke 2 and Psalm 23, verses I will always hear in the words of the Bible of Shakespeare.  These words are from Mark, the story we tell tonight in our Maundy Thursday/Tenebrae service.  They include the original language:

            Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?

            In the majority of the Christian tradition, we do not often tie those words to what happens next.  Jesus dies, they pull him off the cross, and they hustle him into a rock cut tomb.  They are on a deadline.  We measure our days midnight to midnight.  In the Gospel, the day is measured sundown to sundown.  Our Lord’s Day is Sunday.  In the Gospel, the Sabbath is Saturday.  And this Sabbath carries the weight of our Easter Sunday.  It is the Passover Sabbath, when the angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt. (It is also our Passover, but that is another post).  No work, on pain of death.  Get him in the tomb before sundown.  That's why the women return on Sunday morning to finish the burial rituals.

            The Sabbath dates back to the Creation.  Genesis 2:1-3: “Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all their multitude. And on the 7th day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the 7th day from all the work that he had done. So God blessed the 7th day and hallowed it, because on it God rested from all the work that he had done in creation.”

            It is a Top Ten Commandment of the Lord, Exodus 20:8, “Remember the sabbath day, and keep it holy”.  It is a point of contention repeatedly between Jesus and the leadership of the people, because he did “horrible” things like healing people on the Sabbath.  In the Law of Moses, Sabbath is SO sacred, that to break Sabbath became a stoning offense.  (Numbers 15).

            So consider...

            Jesus was three days in the tomb.  Not 36 hours, that is our reckoning of days.  But Friday, Saturday (Sabbath), and Sunday (First Day of the Week) in the Biblical reckoning.  But the one “full” day (24 hours) was the Sabbath, was the day that God hallowed.  That Jesus was separated, forsaken, by the Father as he cried out on the cross, it is even more poignantly emphasized that Jesus was dead through God's hallowed Day.  Even more so as this is the Passover Sabbath.  

            Died for us.  It is easy to miss because the Sabbath, whether Saturday or Sunday, has been SO invaded by the world with demands for our time and attention, that it is a struggle to make any time for Jesus.  Jesus did not simply die, but He was "forsaken by God" dead (His words).  There is a reason the Apostle’s Creed uses the phrase “descended into hell”.

            In the tomb, the one full day that our Lord Jesus was not present for was the Day devoted to His Father, our Father, who art in heaven.  Maybe put it this way: On the day God hallowed, Jesus was cursed, for us.

            Ultimately, is this piece of the story central to our salvation?  No.  But it shows us just how total the story of Jesus' death; He who was cut off as the bearer of our sins; actually is.  To use language of today, it is "an immersive experience" of what it means that Jesus died for us.   

            Which, I hope, makes the wonder and the joy of Easter morning, of Jesus' resurrection so much more immersive for us.    

Peace,

Pastor Pete