Surely one of the most perplexing verses in the New Testament is one of Jesus’ “Seven Last Words” from the Cross: “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46). For centuries, scholars and laymen alike have wondered: Did God the Father actually forsake or abandon Jesus the Son? If not, why did Jesus say it?
Jesus’s cry has so flummoxed readers over the centuries that prominent Protestant scholar F. F. Bruce, in his commentary on this passage, remarks: “No explanation of this cry is offered in the NT [the New Testament], and we do well not to try to explain the unexplained.” German Protestant scholar Rudolf Bultmann is even more pessimistic, writing: “We cannot tell whether or how Jesus found meaning in it [his death]. We may not veil from ourselves the possibility that he suffered a collapse.” In other words, Jesus’s statement from the Cross is seemingly so out of sync with the rest of the Gospels that even well-respected academics can’t make sense of it.
Catholic scholars, thankfully, have fared far better in interpreting Jesus’s enigmatic statement. Indeed, there is a longstanding tradition of meditating on Jesus’s “Seven Last Words” from the Cross, of which His statement in the Gospel of Matthew is but one. This tradition not only helps us make sense of Jesus’s statement but also teaches us something singularly important about human suffering.
First, a little context about this verse is necessary. A lot of terrible things had happened to Jesus by the time He uttered these famous words. Jesus had been betrayed by one of His closest friends, and the rest of His inner circle — with the exception of the Apostle John — had abandoned Him. His own people arrested Him, charged Him with a crime He had not committed, and handed Him over to the Romans, a remarkable betrayal. After having been scourged and forced to carry a huge wooden beam, huge nails were pounded into His hands and feet. Then He was publicly mocked and humiliated. Arrestingly, for much of the time He was hanging on the Cross, a darkness fell over the land, a remarkable event that is supported by extrabiblical evidence.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
It is after this supernatural event that we read Jesus say: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It isn’t just us, two thousand years removed from this question, who were confused. The crowd thought Jesus was calling on the prophet Elijah. In fact, He was quoting a verse from Psalm 22. This is a significant clue into what Jesus means here. When read in its entirety, Psalm 22, though viscerally expressing a feeling of abandonment, in the end presents itself as a hymn of confidence in God despite the reality of profound suffering. For example, toward the end we read the Psalmist, traditionally understood to be David, say: “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord!” (Ps. 22:26).
If Jesus is making Psalm 22 His own prayer, then He is both expressing a feeling of forsakenness while simultaneously trusting in God’s providential care for His own. This is precisely how some of the greatest minds of the Church have interpreted Jesus. St. Alphonsus Liguori, for example, argues that Jesus at this moment was not abandoned by the Father, nor deprived of the divine glory His human soul possessed from the moment of conception, but rather He was deprived of relief and comfort. The “divine forsaking,” argues Catholic biblical scholar Dom Bernard Orchard, is “a poetical expression of acute physical and mental pain.” This is further supported by the fact that Jesus’s other last words from the Cross, such as Him promising the repentant thief that they will be in Paradise that very day and commending His spirit to the Father, also express a confidence in the goodness of the divine plan.
This is really good news for us. Jesus’s cry may seem an enigmatic statement requiring some sophisticated, esoteric theological explanation, but it is also the cry of every human person who has felt abandoned. Just about all of us, at one time or another, feel like God has forsaken us.
Perhaps our sins weigh us down with guilt and self-hatred. Though we dutifully return over and over again to confession to receive absolution and grace, habitual sin can weigh us down and feel like God is far from us. How could God love a sinner like me?
Alternatively, we may suffer various illnesses or conditions, whether physical or mental, that make life exceedingly difficult. What other people do with ease, we struggle to do, if we can do it at all. While others seem content and carefree, our days are filled with labor and grief. Is God there? Why must I suffer from this condition while others do not?
Or it may simply be that we are experiencing a period of “winter” in our lives — strained or broken relationships, frustration or boredom with our careers, or even just a feeling that our spiritual life is on autopilot. Once, we were happy. Our life made sense and seemed full of purpose. Now it seems confused, aimless, lacking in meaning. Does any of it matter?
When Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He is telling us that He knows what it’s like. He, too, has felt alone. He, too, has felt betrayed. He, too, has felt the sting of having once been celebrated and now condemned. A lot of people believed Jesus was the Messiah. On the Cross, almost all of those people were gone, if they weren’t now publicly deriding Jesus as a blasphemer and criminal.
All of that must have really hurt. We often think about the physical pain Jesus experienced on the Cross. There’s, of course, good reason for that, as evidenced by the centrality of the crucifix in every Catholic parish. But we shouldn’t neglect the fact that Jesus felt deep inner agony as well. Jesus felt that turmoil so that we would know that, whatever our struggles, whatever our inner turmoil, He is there with us. As G. K. Chesterton observes in the last chapter of his epic story The Man Who Was Thursday, never can we say to God: “You don’t know what it’s like!” Because of Jesus’s sufferings on the Cross, He does. And because of His words on the Cross, we can know that, too.
Being a Christian does not exempt us from the cauldron of pain. Often, faithfulness to Christ pushes us into painful circumstances we might otherwise avoid — just ask His repentant Apostles. But because of the Incarnation and Crucifixion, we know we are not alone in our pain. Jesus is there with us. On the Cross, He said so Himself.
Keep reading: Wisdom from the Cross: How Jesus’ Seven Last Words Teach Us How to Live (and Die) Well
