“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some of the last words Jesus speaks as he suffocates and dies on the cross are not what they seem. For quite some time, I thought when Christ cried out ‘“Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”’ (Matthew27:46) that He was feeling and experiencing a separation from God because He had willingly taken on all of our sins. My mom pointed out a Psalm that suggests this was not the case. It’s completely changed the way I see the moments before Christ’s death.As any well-educated Jew at that time knew, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” is the beginning of Psalm 22.
Even as he gasped for his last breaths, Christ was speaking of fulfilling the prophecies of old and bringing new hope. Psalm 22 is called “The Prayer of an Innocent Person.” It includes many allusions to the specific types of suffering Christ endured during his Passion…Read more here.
