Why have you forsaken me?
The cry of dereliction
At the ninth hour, from the cross, Jesus cried out with a loud voice the most harrowing words in all of Scripture: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The eternal Son, who had never known a moment's separation from the Father, entered the experience of utter abandonment. Whatever else the dark night of the soul means, we can never say that God does not understand it — for God himself, in Christ, has cried it.
This changes everything about our own seasons of felt forsakenness. When God seems absent, when the heavens feel like brass and our prayers seem to hit the ceiling, we are not in a place Christ has never been. He has been to the very bottom of God-forsakenness, deeper than we will ever go, and he did it for us. The cry of dereliction means that even our darkest desolation is territory the Savior has already walked.
And there is a hidden mercy in those words. Jesus was quoting the opening line of Psalm 22 — a psalm that begins in abandonment but ends in vindication and praise. Even in the cry, he reaches for Scripture, and points beyond the darkness to the dawn the psalm foresaw. He was forsaken so that we, in our forsakenness, would never finally be. The God who cried why have you forsaken me ensures that the question, for us, will not have the last word.
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
— Jesus, on the cross — Matthew 27:46 (WEB)
Bring your seasons of felt forsakenness to a Savior who has cried the cry of dereliction himself — so that you are never alone or misunderstood in the dark.
“For we don't have a high priest who can't be touched with the feeling of our infirmities, but one who has been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin.”
Pain has a way of shrinking the world to the size of our own desolation, until we are sure our suffering is unprecedented and unwitnessed, ours to bear in a solitude no one has entered. The interior work is to let one memory break that confinement — the Son crying My God, why have you forsaken me — and to refuse the verdict of aloneness on the ground that the very bottom we dread is ground the Savior has already stood on, ahead of us and for us.
This week, if God feels absent, bring the desolation to Christ rather than hiding it: tell him you are echoing his own cry, and rest in a high priest who has felt this and worse, trusting that he was forsaken so you would never finally be.
The enemy works to isolate the suffering soul, breeding a quiet certainty that our case is the exception, the one grief too far gone for company or understanding, so that we suffer it alone. But the cry from the cross has already gone deeper than ours will ever reach — the soul that knows the Savior cried it first cannot be talked into believing it stands beyond all help.
When we enter seasons of felt abandonment — when God seems to have withdrawn and our prayers seem to go nowhere — we can feel utterly alone, as if no one, least of all God, could understand. The cry from the cross shatters that isolation. God himself, in Christ, has cried why have you forsaken me, descending into a God-forsakenness deeper than any we will know.
This means our darkest desolation is not foreign territory to our Savior; he has been there before us, and for us. He was forsaken so that we, even in our worst abandonment, would never finally be forsaken. And like the psalm he quoted, which moves from abandonment to praise, our darkness is not the end of the story. When God seems absent, remember whose cry you are echoing — and that he cried it so that yours would not be the last word.
- When God feels absent, do I believe no one, least of all God, understands?
- Can I bring my desolation to a Savior who has cried this cry himself?
- Does it change my dark night to know Christ was forsaken so I never finally would be?
Lord Jesus, from the cross you cried, My God, why have you forsaken me, descending into a darkness deeper than mine, and for me. When you seem absent, let me know I echo your own cry, and that you were forsaken so that I, even in my desolation, never finally would be. Amen.