why have you forsaken me

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Shaolen

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What’s the significance of Jesus saying this. My dad (southern Baptist) asked me if God really had forsaken Jesus when Jesus said that. I said no, since I figured Jesus already knew this was going to happen. Then my dad states that he was quoting a psalm. What was the reason for him saying it?
 
Psalm 22 is a prophecy of the Messiah’s passion.

Some excerpts of the Catena Aurea of St. Thomas Aquinas (which quotes Church Fathers and early Christian writers) on why our Lord quoted that Psalm:

Chrys.: He uttered this word of prophecy, that He might bear witness to the very last hour to the Old Testament, and that they might see that He honours the Father, and is not against God. And therefore too, He used the Hebrew tongue, that what He said might be intelligible to them.

Origen: But it must be asked, What means this, that Christ is forsaken of God? Some, unable to explain how Christ could be forsaken of God, say that this was spoken out of humility. But you will be able clearly to comprehend His meaning if you make a comparison of the glory which He had with the Father with the shame which He despised when He endured the cross.

Gloss., non occ.: God is said to have forsaken Him in death because He exposed Him to the power of His persecutors; He withdrew His protection, but did not break the union.

Raban.: Or, The Saviour said this as bearing about with Him our feelings, who when placed in dangers think ourselves forsaken by God. Human nature was forsaken by God because of its sins, and the Son of God becoming our Advocate laments the misery of those whose guilt He took upon Him; therein shewing how they who sin ought to mourn, when He who never sinned did thus mourn.
 
IMO, Jesus took on all our human sufferings and thus at the last he felt forsaken, though he was not and we are not.

but also I have heard that the Jewish people memorized the psalms and I like to think that in his suffering he started repeating the psalms and by the third hour, he was on psalm 22…?

Or he repeated this psalm to point us in the direction of the prophecy about his death which was written by King David?? If you read it, it is pretty close to exactly what happened to Him on the cross and thus ANOTHER prophecy fulfilled…
 
The Psalm you speak of is a Psalm of victory.
The victim is triumphant in the end.

God bless
 
Your dad is right. Jesus is quoting Psalm 22 and would have had the whole thing in mind (as would have His hearers) when He said it (in the same way you would have the whole first verse pop to mind if I said to you “O say can you see by the dawn’s early light”)

Here’s the whole thing for context:

Psalm 22 21st Century King James Version (KJ21)

22 My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why art Thou so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning?

2 O My God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season I am not silent.

3 But Thou art holy, O Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

4 Our fathers trusted in Thee; they trusted, and Thou didst deliver them.

5 They cried unto Thee and were delivered; they trusted in Thee and were not confounded.

6 But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised by the people.

7 All they that see Me laugh Me to scorn; they shoot out their lip, they shake their head, saying,

8 “He trusted in the Lord that He would deliver him; let Him deliver him, seeing He delighted in him!”

9 But Thou art He that took Me out of the womb; Thou didst make Me hope when I was upon My mother’s breasts.

10 I was cast upon Thee from the womb; Thou art My God from My mother’s belly.

11 Be not far from Me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help.

12 Many bulls have compassed Me about; strong bulls of Bashan have beset Me round.

13 They gaped at Me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My body.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue cleaveth to My jaws; and Thou hast brought Me into the dust of death.

16 For dogs have surrounded Me; the assembly of the wicked have enclosed Me; they pierced My hands and My feet.

17 I can count all My bones; they look and stare upon Me.

18 They part My garments among them, and cast lots upon My vesture.

19 But be Thou not far from Me, O Lord; O My Strength, hasten Thee to help Me!

20 Deliver My soul from the sword, My only one from the power of the dog.

21 Save Me from the lion’s mouth; for Thou hast heard Me from the horns of the unicorns.

22 I will declare Thy name unto My brethren; in the midst of the congregation will I praise Thee.

23 Ye that fear the Lord, praise Him! All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and fear Him, all ye the seed of Israel.

24 For He hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath He hid His face from Him, but when He cried unto Him, He heard.

25 My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation; I will pay My vows before them that fear Him.

26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek Him. Your heart shall live for ever.

27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Thee.

28 For the kingdom is the Lord’S, and He is the governor among the nations.

29 All they that are fat upon the earth shall eat and worship; all they that go down to the dust shall bow before Him, for none can keep alive his own soul.

30 A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

31 They shall come and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that He hath done this.
 
Jesus was preaching to them, even to His dying breath. They thought they had won… until He reminded them of the psalm. Every line of Psalm 22 was a prophecy of what was happening to Jesus right at that very moment.

The scorned Him and declared, “Let God take him down from that cross.” So He replied with the first line of the psalm and to remind them. He was gasping for breath from suffocation, and every breath He took was agony, but He knew that they were schooled in the scriptures just as He was. The first line of the psalm would be enough.

And when they looked back afterwards they could see it was true. His limbs were disjointed by the nailing and by His weight hanging on them, but not a bone was broken. The guards gambled for His robe. Blood and water spilled from His side. They had mocked him, not realizing at first that they were themselves quoting the psalm.

Yet Jesus never lost faith. His cry wasn’t one of brokenness. His cry was one of teaching. The end of the psalm proclaims victory, and indeed victory was His.
 
I think at that time He was suffering with those who are lonely.

When we sin, we are seperated from God. Jesus took on all of the sins ever commited or shall be commited, so He probably felt very much so abandoned by His Father.
 
Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned.(405) But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”(406) Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all”, so that we might be “reconciled to God by the death of his Son”.(407)–CCC 603
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"...the first verse of which the Lord Himself uttered on the Cross: "My God, My God, look upon Me; why have You forsaken Me?" For "transferring us in a figure" [1 Corinthians 4:6] to what He was saying, and to His own Body (for we are also "His Body," and He is our "Head"), He uttered from the Cross not His own cry, but ours. For God never "forsook" Him: nor did He Himself ever depart from the Father; but it was in behalf of us that He spoke this: "My God, My God, why have you forsaken Me?" For there follows, "Far from My health are the words of My offences:" and it shows in whose person He said this; for sin could not be found in Him.…"--St Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 44
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Along with that Psalm I believe that Jesus was allowed to feel a full out feeling of abandonment. We too are allowed to feel that feeling as well as we, in a lesser sense, such as when we lose a family member or loved one. Jesus, remains ever faithful to God after the fact and as mentioned by some one earlier, it is a teaching moment for us as well. Remember along with that word he continues on and states that God’s will be done not His. A complete surrendering and full obedience to the Father. That is why God said about Jesus that He was pleased with Him who died for ours sins.
 
A rabbinic practice was to start the recitation of a psalm by saying the first verse. As others have said, this was a reference to the entire psalm.

It makes me think, too. When Jesus says My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? who is the “you” that he is referring to?

There’s question that comes up, what does scripture mean when it was written, and what does it mean today? today, doesn’t it suggest that we have forsaken Christ to the grizzly death on the cross, because of our sins?
 
It is also believed that when Jesus cried “Father why have you abandoned me” That Jesus was expressing His sorrow to the Father for He knew that some would not avail themselves of the salvation merited for them by Him For men were created by Him and for Him to be united with Him, and He treasured all of them. This loss caused Him much suffering.
 
Shaolen said:
What’s the significance of Jesus saying this. My dad (southern Baptist) asked me if God really had forsaken Jesus when Jesus said that. I said no, since I figured Jesus already knew this was going to happen. Then my dad states that he was quoting a psalm. What was the reason for him saying it?
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We have to remember that Christ is both God and Man. In His Divinity, He can never be separated from the Father. This is impossible, and to think such a thing is heresy. However, so that Christ could experience true human nature, He allowed Himself, in His Humanity, to be separated from His Father, thus allowing Him to become, in the truest sense of the word, a Son of Adam. This forsaking by God of His Son is the basic idea of Hell - where God is not present! Christ Himself descended into Hell within Himself on the Cross. But, because it Pleased Him to be subjected to the darkness of man, it made Him Victor over all the powers of darkness. Christ suffered the most intense passions of the flesh, without being subject to the sins of the flesh.

It makes you think: why does God, Who cannot sin, feel the full affect of the sins of Adam, yet Adam’s children do not feel this same affect, even though we sin?! This is how much God loves us! He is willing to suffer for us, so that we might have a chance to win the race of life and to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”, to quote the glorious Apostle of the Gentiles! God bless.
 
Shaolen said:
What’s the significance of Jesus saying this. My dad (southern Baptist) asked me if God really had forsaken Jesus when Jesus said that. I said no, since I figured Jesus already knew this was going to happen. Then my dad states that he was quoting a psalm. What was the reason for him saying it?
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It means God so loves the world that Jesus was willing to go all the way down in to God forsakenness (e.g. God forsaking God) to teach us that there is no sin too great or distance too far for the saving hand of our Lord.
 
Shaolen said:
What’s the significance of Jesus saying this. My dad (southern Baptist) asked me if God really had forsaken Jesus when Jesus said that. I said no, since I figured Jesus already knew this was going to happen. Then my dad states that he was quoting a psalm. What was the reason for him saying it?
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According to Ven. Mary of Agreda in her approved book of private revelation, Jesus said this because God the Father in His justice did not permit that ALL souls would be saved by Jesus’ Passion and death, like Jesus in His humanity had desired and prayed for in the Garden of Gethsemene. Reprobates would not profit by the fruits of the Redemption because of their hard-hearedness, and would be forsaken by the justice of God; this caused Jesus His agony in the Garden of Gethseme and caused Him to speak these last words about being forsaken. In His divinity Jesus was never forsaken. God bless you.
 
ynotzap said:
It is also believed that when Jesus cried “Father why have you abandoned me” That Jesus was expressing His sorrow to the Father for He knew that some would not avail themselves of the salvation merited for them by Him For men were created by Him and for Him to be united with Him, and He treasured all of them. This loss caused Him much suffering.
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It’s interesting because at one point Jesus states in a prayer to the Father that he has not lost any of those entrusted to Him. That tells me that perhaps some people will not be saved or if there are levels, make it at a later point and time.
 
SanctusMarcus said:
We have to remember that Christ is both God and Man. In His Divinity, He can never be separated from the Father. This is impossible, and to think such a thing is heresy. However, so that Christ could experience true human nature, He allowed Himself, in His Humanity, to be separated from His Father, thus allowing Him to become, in the truest sense of the word, a Son of Adam. This forsaking by God of His Son is the basic idea of Hell - where God is not present! Christ Himself descended into Hell within Himself on the Cross. But, because it Pleased Him to be subjected to the darkness of man, it made Him Victor over all the powers of darkness. Christ suffered the most intense passions of the flesh, without being subject to the sins of the flesh.

It makes you think: why does God, Who cannot sin, feel the full affect of the sins of Adam, yet Adam’s children do not feel this same affect, even though we sin?! This is how much God loves us! He is willing to suffer for us, so that we might have a chance to win the race of life and to “work out our salvation with fear and trembling”, to quote the glorious Apostle of the Gentiles! God bless.
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If I understand you correctly God does feel the full affect of sin through Jesus who we know as fully God and fully human. We cannot feel that same intensity in pain because we didn’t take up all the Sin’s of humanity as Jesus did. We basically feel the affects of our own sins, which are minor compared to those of the World.🙂
 
Yes, all men have been redeemed, but, unfortunately, not all men will be saved. We must cooperate with God’s grace if we wish to be saved. God bless you.
 
ready said:
Yes, all men have been redeemed, but, unfortunately, not all men will be saved. We must cooperate with God’s grace if we wish to be saved. God bless you.
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Let us pray for the conversion of sinners, for a softening of the hardness of hearts, for an end to hatred… and let us pray for peace in the world, but more importantly for the saving of all men and life eternal! Hear us, Oh Lord… Have mercy on us!
 
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