Did God turn away . . .

When I was in Bible school, I heard a taped sermon about the cry of Jesus from the cross, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

The preacher said that Psalm 22, from which this cry is the first line, was often said by the Jews when in deep distress. While Jesus could repeat only the first line, it was common to say the entire psalm. Because of this cultural and religious practice, my understanding of that cry from the cross has changed.

Most Christians would say, based on this line, that when Jesus hung on the cross bearing our sin, the awfulness of that sin was so great that God could not look at it. Instead, He turned His face away from His own Son.

The preacher challenged that. He said that we should read the rest of the psalm. Even the next few verses cast aside the idea that God forsakes His people, never mind His Son.

My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning? O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; and in the night season, and am not silent. But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; they trusted in You, and were not ashamed.

Later on, verses 23-24 say, “You who fear the Lord, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and fear Him, all you offspring of Israel! For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; nor has He hidden His face from Him; but when He cried to Him, He heard.”

Of course the average student of the Bible would not know about this practice of reciting this psalm in distress, not as a cry from someone abandoned, but the cry of someone who feels abandoned, but knows that this is not true. The psalm is an affirmation that no matter what, God is always near and hears the cries of those in trouble.

This does not diminish the awfulness of sin, nor lessen the extreme ugliness of the sins of the world piled on Jesus. What it does do is magnify the glory of God. Certainly God is holy and hates sin, but if sin makes Him turn away, what difference is there between one sin and a million? All are awful in His sight, but are they a threat to His holiness? Does He have to turn away to preserve His own goodness? Nonsense. He is light and truth. In His presence, darkness and lies must flee, not the other way around.

God tells me that He will never leave me or forsake me. If I thought that He turned away every time I sinned, I would be mocking that promise. If I thought that He abandoned His own Son because of the sins everyone else committed, how could I ever cry out to Him when I sin?

When I sin is when I need Him the most. Would I call on Him if I even suspected that what I had done was so terrible that had turned His back on me? He promises to hear those who humbly call on His name. If He would not listen to Jesus, how could I depend on Him to listen to me?

Thankfully, He doesn’t leave me in any guessing games. He said that He will be here, no matter what. The psalmist knew it, and so do I.

I’m also certain that the Father did not forsake the Son either. For the man Jesus, it felt like it, just as I sometimes feel like God is far away. During that time when Jesus suffered and bore our sin, He no doubt felt the weight of guilt that tends to make anyone feel like God will not stand by them. Jesus expressed that sense of being abandoned in that one line, but He also knew the rest of Psalm 22 (after all, He had a hand in writing it).

His pain and suffering robbed Him of the strength to say the rest of the psalm, but any Jew standing there would have known what He was doing. Besides, the psalm is preserved for me to read. As I do, I realize that God never abandons His people, no matter what we do. The very worst of sinners can cry out to Him and He will hear them. When I sin, I can cry out to Him; He will not turn away. When Jesus bore my sin and in His extreme agony, cried out, surely God also heard Him and did not abandon Him either.