Jesus is abandoned by God

There are different kinds of psalms according to content: some are psalms of gratitude; others of reconciliation; still others of thanksgiving. There are also psalms of lament such as Psalm 22 (or 21), which is considered an emblematic psalm of lament. The psalm begins with a mysterious lament: “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” Let’s meditate on Psalm 22.

There are other biblical texts underscoring the laments to God by concrete persons, or by the people. For instance the lament that Moses addresses to Yahweh: “Why do you treat your servant so badly” (Nb. 11:11); the lament or complaint of the people of Israel against God and Moses: “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to die in the desert?” (Nb 29:5). There is the terrible lament of Job: “Why was I not still-born? Or not perish as I left the womb?” (Jb 3:11). The prophets wail for the people of Israel: “Yahweh has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me” (Is 49:14).

Biblical scholars tell us that the psalms of lament are usually psalms of praise too as it is the case of Psalm 22, which is divided in two distinct parts: the first part (verses 1-21) is of lament: “Why have you forsaken me? I call by day but you do not answer; at night, but I find no respite” (22:1-2). People see him abandoned by God and laugh at him: “He trusted himself to Yahweh; let Yahweh set him free! Let him deliver him, as he took such delight in him” (22:8)

The first part of Psalm 22 is not only of lament! It is also and more radically an act of faith: “My God, my God …” It is the complaint of a believer, of the people of Israel, of each one of us. The believer trusts in God and prays to him: “Do not hold aloof, for trouble is upon me, and no one to help me” (22:11); “Yahweh … My strength, come quickly to my help” (22:19); “Save me from the lion’s mouth” (22:21).

The second part of Psalm 22 (verses 22-31) is of praise – and trust. “I shall proclaim your name to my brothers, praise you in full assembly” (22:22); “Of you my praise in the thronged assembly” (22:25); “You who fear Yahweh, praise him, honor him, revere him” (22:23); “Those who seek Yahweh will praise him” (22:26); “The whole wide world will remember and return to Yahweh” (22:27).

Psalm 22 is perhaps one of the best known psalms by all Christians. It is the psalm Jesus prayed from the Cross. Like me, many of you know this psalm, at least its first verse, from childhood. When I was a child, the priests celebrating Holy Week in our small town El Oso (Avila), usually a Dominican, always preached the Seven Last Words. Undoubtedly, the Fourth was always the most dramatic and mysterious: “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Mt 27:46; Mk 15:34).

Christ crucified prays Psalm 22, which appears to be substantially actualized in him: “My God, my God…; “My strength is trickling away, my bones are all disjointed, my heart has turned to wax, melting inside me” (Ps 22: 1, 14); “My mouth is dry as earthenware, my tongue sticks to my jaw”(22:15); “I can count every one of my bones, while they look on and gloat”(22:17); “They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing” (22:18). Jesus on the cross, suffering terribly, feels abandoned by God.

No sugar-coating for this incredible fact: Jesus is abandoned by God the Father! Jesus as the Son of God could not be abandoned by God; but God in the form of man – Jesus the Man – could and was abandoned by God. St. Augustine comments: The Lord Jesus Christ, “made in the likeness of man,” “wished to make his own the words of the psalm, as he hung on the cross: ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’” “So was the son left to die by the Father” (Tertullian). The crucified Lord does not complain of the abandonment of Pilate, of the Jews, of his executioners; nor does he complain of the abandonment of his disciples. He laments deeply the abandonment of the Father: to his Abba Father, Jesus is profoundly united and therefore he is profoundly pained when the Father abandons him. Why? Why was he abandoned by his Father?  He was the victim to redeem us from our sins, bestow grace on us, and thus justify us. As St. Paul tells us, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law by being cursed for our sake” (Gal 3:13). Jesus suffered divine abandonment to show the infinite love of God for us: “That Christ died for us while we were still sinners is proof of God’s own love for us” (Rom 5:8).

Jesus accepted “absolute loneliness” to be close to the lonely and abandoned of the world, and thus show us the path of life we ought to follow: “Christ suffered for you and left an example for you to follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:21); “You have been bought at a price, so use your body for the glory of God” (1 Cor 6:20; cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh, III, 46, 3). The abandoned Christ on the Cross is with all the abandoned of the world – the poor, migrants, refugees, women, born and unborn children, the elderly (Pope Francis says that “the gravest sickness of the elderly is their abandonment”). Jesus crucified prays silently: “Rescue my soul from the sword, the one life I have from the grasp of the dog” (Ps 22: 20); “For he has not despised nor disregarded the poverty of the poor, has not turned away his face, but has listened to the cry for help” (22:24).

The prophets, Mary and the saints at one time or another felt – like Jesus – abandoned by God. Sooner or later in our own life, we experience the abandonment of others – and of God! And we ask God: Why? Why this misfortune, this cancer, this death of a child in the family, why the current genocides, why this unbelievable plane crash?  Pope Benedict XVI asked these questions at the place of a concentration camp, Auschwitz-Birkenau (May 28, 2006): “Why the Holocaust? Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? A 12-year-old former street child with tears in her eyes asked Pope Francis in Manila last January: Why do children suffer so much? Why does God allow it?

God our Father does not answer us yet. So we continue asking, while making of our question an act of faith and a prayer of trust. By experiencing divine abandonment, or the silent presence of God, Christ is close to us and we are close to him and to the abandoned of the world, of our communities.

We believe that our abandonment on our cross of suffering is for a short time. Isaiah says that God may abandon us for a while but only for a short while: God says, “I forsake you for a moment, but in great compassion I shall take you back. I hid my face from you. But in everlasting love I have taken pity on you.” And then the incredibly moving and consoling words from God to believers, to you and me: “Can a woman forget her baby at the breast; feel no pity for the child she has borne? Even if these were to forget, I shall not forget you” (Is 49:14-15). The cry of the psalmist, the cry of Christ is not a cry of despair – like the cry of Cain and Judas – but a cry of hope, a prayer for God’s mercy: “Rescue my soul from the sword” (22:20); “Save me from the lion’s mouth” (22:21). In our hour of darkness, we believe and know that God, Abba Father, loves us; that the cross is the cross of salvation and hope of the resurrection; that the death of Christ is victory in itself and death that destroys death, and that Good Friday points to Easter Sunday. Indeed, the Crucified Lord is the Risen Lord.

Meditating on Psalm 22, fixing our eyes on the Crucified Lord and listening to his Fourth Last Word on the cross, we never tire of asking God our Father with a painful and hopeful prayer: “Why have you abandoned me?” We do not understand, but we know that Jesus is praying with us, with each one of us: “My God, my God…”

Mother Mary, our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us! Amen

 

Fr. Fausto Gomez, OP

Cistercian-Trappistine Monastery Chapel

Macau, March 28, 2015