There is no way this side of eternity we will ever be able to fully
understand the words of our Lord recorded in Matthew 27:46: "My God, my
God, why have you forsaken me?" As the mob mocked him, and while the
thief who was crucified next to him hurled insults at him, our Lord's
thoughts turned not to his own physical anguish or the ridicule he faced
from onlookers. His mind was on something far different from that of
most dying men--his dying lament was the anguish he felt at being
estranged from his heavenly Father, whose wrath he bore as he faced an
excruciating death by crucifixion. The Father he had known from all
eternity had now turned his back on his only begotten son. Just moments
after uttering these awesome words, he took his final breath. The
significance of his death was only then slowly being grasped by those
who watched him give up his spirit. For at the very moment when his
heart ceased beating the afternoon sky was suddenly darkened and terra firma itself shuddered beneath his cross. This was no ordinary death.
There
are other signs which marked the time of his death as well. The great
curtain in the Jerusalem temple--separating the Holy Place from the
Most Holy Place--was dramatically torn in two all the way from top to
bottom. It was as though God Himself was removing his blessing from
what had been his earthly temple. The sacrifices offered in that temple
were no longer accepted by God, and any further shedding of the blood
of bulls and goats was now an offense to God and only served to further
increase the guilt of those who offered them. And when it was finally
and mercifully over, one soldier responsible for seeing to it that the
sentence of death was carried out, and now terribly frightened because
of the cosmic upheaval that accompanied this man's dying, is reported
to have exclaimed "Surely, this man was the Son of God" (Mt 27:54). For
it was now clear to all that this was not just another common criminal
who had died before their eyes. Indeed, this bloody, disfigured, and
humiliated man, the one identified by the crude sign that adorned his
cross as the "King of the Jews," was none other than the Son of God.
Without guilt before God or man, and a willing victim despite his
complete and total innocence, this man died under the wrath of his
Father in order to save those who were even then taking perverse delight
in his death. This was no ordinary death. Continue at Kim Riddlebarger
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