Why would Jesus in the midst of his death cry out, my God, my God, why has Thou forsaken

me?

Beloved, He wasn't simply feeling forsaken, but He was forsaken.

Now, it's tradition in the church, during Holy Week, to hold services commemorating Jesus'

death on Good Friday, and one of the common traditions is for the preacher to give exposition

concerning the so-called words of the cross, those statements that are recorded for us in sacred

writ that Jesus uttered while being crucified. We don't find all of them in any one gospel.

They are sprinkled and dispersed throughout the four gospel accounts, but I call attention

to this one because this one more than any other has caused so much bewilderment among

people who read the account. Why would Jesus in the midst of his death cry out, my God,

my God, why has Thou forsaken me? Now, we know that the words are borrowed directly from the text

of Psalm 22, but it seems a strange thing that a man in the midst of this kind of passion and

pain would resort to quoting poetry. And obviously, the cry as it is uttered from the lips

of Jesus, though it may certainly involve an identification with the lament that is recorded

in Psalm 22, directs our attention behind and beneath that Psalm to its deeper significance.

When I was ordained into the ministry as was the custom in our church, the person who is presented

for ordination, who is called the ordinate, is given the privilege of selecting the ordination

hymn. And the hymn I chose for my own ordination is a hymn that not many people know.

And the name of it is called, his midnight and on all of's brow. It is a haunting hymn

that speaks of the agony that Jesus endured the night before his death as he pray drops of blood

in the garden of Gasemini when he asked God to let that cup be removed from him. But as much as I

love that hymn, there is a verse in it or a portion of a verse that has always disturbed

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