Author: Art Verboon
Scripture: Matthew 27:45-56
Prelude
Preservice Hymns
The Lord Calls Us to Worship
Welcome and Announcements
Silent Prayer
Call to Worship
*Psalter Hymnal
*Declaration of Trust & God’s Greeting
*Hymn of Praise
The Lord Reconciles Us to Himself
Prayer of Confession and Commitment
God’s Rule for Holy Living
Hymn of Confession
Promises of the Lord
Prayer of Thanksgiving and Intercession
Offering
*Hymn PH #383 "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded"
The Lord Instructs Us from His Word
Scripture Matthew 27:45-56
Text: Matthew 27:46
Sermon "THE CRY FROM THE CROSS AND HELL"
Prayer of Application
*Hymn of Response PH #379:1-3 "What Wondrous Love"
The Lord Sends Us to Serve
*Benediction
*Closing Doxology PH #379:4 "What Wondrous Love"
*Postlude
THE CRY FROM THE CROSS AND HELL
Sermon prepared by Rev. Art Verboon, Edmonton, AB
MESSAGE
INTRODUCTION:
It is said that when Martin Luther sat down in his office to study and prepare a
message from the text, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" he had
a difficult time with it. Hour after hour he just sat there. Those who were around
him at the time would pop their heads into the room occasionally to see how he
was doing. But, he was so absorbed in his thoughts that they almost thought he
was a corpse. He never moved his hand or his foot. He didn’t eat or drink. He
just sat there with his eyes wide open as if he were in a trance trying to understand
these words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Finally, after
many long hours in which he seemed to be in another world, he got up from his
chair and someone heard him say to himself, "God forsaking God!? It’s impossible
to understand! Who can understand it?" And with that he went on his way.
Although none of us can claim to be a Martin Luther by any stretch of the
imagination other than perhaps wearing the same dumbfounded look that he
wore on his face that day, we do however endorse his conclusion, that this, the
saddest cry ever heard on the face of the earth, goes beyond anything we can
understand. And that’s why I’m going to explain it to you. No, we’re not going to
try and explain it away; but hopefully we will think through some things that
might be somewhat helpful.
I. NOT THE FIRST TIME
First of all, we can begin by admitting that this is not the first and only time in
which we ought to throw up our hands and say, "Who can understand it?" Just as
great a mystery as "God forsaking God" is that moment way back in the Garden
of Eden. Remember what Adam and Eve did to God? They had it all! They had
paradise, they had God, they had shalom, and they were the apples of God’s eye.
And what did they do? They had to have that apple. They had to do the one and
only thing God asked them not to do. They just had to do it! "Who can understand
it?" In their shame, realizing what they had done and how they had ruined
everything between themselves and God, they ran for cover and hid from him.
After they did that, what did you hear next from God? You heard him asking,
"Where are you?" "Where are you?" Interesting, isn’t it? Think about what has
just transpired here. The most unfathomable and unimaginable thing possible has
just happened. Adam and Eve believed Satan’s lie and thought that they could be
like God, and when they thought that they could be like him and acted upon it,
everything that they and God had going between them is ruined for good. And
God, knowing what has happened, comes looking for them and calls out, "Where
are you?" "Why have you abandoned me?" "Why are you hiding from me?" "My
Adam, My Eve, why have you forsaken me?" (Note and point of emphasis --
pause and let it sink in: make it sound like "My God, My God, why have you
forsaken me?")
II. SUBSTITUTION
In the Garden we see humans forsaking and abandoning and hiding from God.
Having done that, they try to flee from his presence. On the cross, again we see
forsaking and abandonment, but this time it is God forsaking God, as Luther
described it. Essentially in both instances, we hear that same sad cry. Whether it
be from God the Father in the garden, or God the Son on the cross, it’s the same
cry of "Where are you?" "Why have you forsaken me?"
There’s an important connection we need to see here between the garden and
the cross. For one, there’s a lot of forsaking going on, that’s clear. But there is
another thing we need to see as well. There’s a lot of substitution. The concept
of substitution lies at the heart of both sin and salvation -- the garden and the
cross. The essence of sin back there in the beginning was humans substituting
themselves for God, trying to be like God. Yet, the essence of salvation is God
substituting himself for humanity. Humanity asserts itself against God and puts
itself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for humanity and
puts himself where only humans deserve to be. We try to claim something that
belongs to God alone; God accepts penalties that belong to us alone.
Without this important concept of substitution, the forsakenness and the cry of
Jesus on the cross makes no sense whatsoever.
The concept of substitution is something that goes against our very being as
individuals. We don’t like to be told that someone has to stand in our place,
because it’s humbling. Nonetheless, the idea of substitution is as old as Eden
itself. Here again, getting back to that question God asked, "Where are you?"
Adam answers, "I heard you in the garden, and was afraid because I was naked;
so I hid (Gen. 3:10)." And then God immediately kills animals for their fur in
order to cover Adam and Eve’s nakedness. Those animals shed their blood for
the sake of our first parents and in order to picture the coming of a better
sacrifice in the distant future. From then on, the phrase, "in the place of" would
become the essence of Old Testament theology.
For instance, when God prevented Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, he saw "a
ram caught in the bush nearby" and he offered it up for a burnt offering "in the
place of" his son. The very word sacrifice implies substitution, and sacrifices
were part and parcel with religious life in the Old Testamemt.
But as we know, the substitutes offered up back then only had limited value. The
lambs, the goats, were only symbolic and were unable to permanently shield the
people from judgement or take away the sins they had committed. A better
substitute than animals had to be found for us humans, if the barrier of sin that
existed between God and us was to be removed.
Thankfully, the penalty that was demanded because of our forsaking God is met
in Christ bearing it for us.
We need not go into this concept of substitution too much, but that’s the imagery
we need to see in our minds as Christ calls out, "My God, my God, why have
you forsaken me?" We need to see the imagery of Jesus being our substitute, lest
we water down his cry at his greatest moment of need simply to a cry of desperation
or loneliness. Far from it, as substitute he became our sin-bearer. As substitute
he took upon himself the sin of the entire world. Let me give you a few
verses that support this idea:
Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming
a curse for us, for it is written: "Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree."
2 Corinthians 5:21: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that
in him we might become the righteousness of God."
One last one: 1 Peter 2:24, "He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree,
so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you
have been healed."
Simply put, he took our place when the wrath of God comes down. It did not just
come upon his physical body there on the cross but upon his soul too during
those three dark hours when darkness covered Golgotha, which caused Jesus to
cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" This is substitution at
it’s perfect best!
Throughout Jesus’ life and ministry and even in Gethsemane he always
referred to God as his Father. In the garden of Gethsemane he fell with his face
to the ground and pleaded, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken
from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." And later that same evening a
second time, "My Father if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away
unless I drink it, may your will be done." However, now on the cross, "My
Father" becomes, "My God."
Jesus is standing in our place. He says, "My God, My God." We should be the
one’s being forsaken by God but he stands "in the place of" us.
III. THE NATURE OF THIS FORSAKING
Moving on to another point: When Jesus cries out, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani"
what exactly is this forsaking? What is the nature of his misery? Maybe we can
get at this in a bit of a round about way. We can do so, by asking why it is that
martyrs for the faith, martyrs like Stephen, martyrs who are burned at the stake,
seem often to die with more joy and praise on their lips, sometimes they are even
singing as they die, than Jesus does? Shouldn’t Jesus, the Son of God, be the
most joyful martyr of all as he’s dying on the cross?
Well, you could make a case for saying that he should be, if the nature of their
deaths were the same. On the physical level, perhaps they are the same, but
Christian martyrs, when they die for their faith, are not being forsaken. They are
able to sing a song of praise because they are not abandoned. They are not alone!
They have Jesus right there with them. Jesus steps up beside them, and because
of it, their soul is full of the presence of Jesus’ Holy Spirit. The strength and
presence of Jesus is with them.
However, Jesus in his death does it alone. In order for the penalty of sin to be
carried, the sin of the entire world had to be on our substitute, Jesus Christ. The
perfect justice and wrath of God needed to be paid for by Jesus, and he had to do
it alone. God the Father as judge could not hold out his hand and offer him help.
He had to do it alone. The perfect communion and fellowship between Father
and Son somehow, as impossible as it is to explain, needed to be broken. Jesus
needed to be forsaken, abandoned, left to become sin by himself. Hence, we hear
Jesus cry out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" "Where are you?"
This is misery that goes beyond our understanding. "Who can understand it?" as
Luther said. Yes, we can understand Jesus’ misery when he suffers at the hands
of other humans, because we do too. We can relate. We can even understand
Jesus’ misery when he suffers at the hands of Satan, because we do too. But we
cannot understand the misery of having to suffer at the hands of God’s ultimate
wrath. This is to feel the misery of hell itself!
To hear the cry, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani" is to hear not simply a cry from the
cross, but it is to hear a cry from hell. This is Jesus’ moment in hell. When we
confess in our Apostle’s Creed that Jesus "descended into hell and on the third
day rose again," that statement leads to a bit of confusion. Within our tradition
we do not believe that Jesus entered hell literally and was subject to Satan for
three days. Jesus never has been, nor ever will be subject to Satan! To say this is
tantamount to giving Satan the victory. No, when Jesus died, he went
immediately that same day to be with his Father in paradise and greeted the
criminal who was on the cross next to him, just as he promised him.
Instead, we need to understand that in those hours of darkness before his death,
those hours in which his Father forsook him and separated himself from him, that
is to experience hell.
As the wrath of God came down upon him, this is the depth of the misery that he
had to endure: separation from God. Hell is separation from God in all its forms.
It is the ultimate forsakenness.
IV. TO EXPERIENCE HELL
You may be thinking to yourself this doesn’t quite sound right. Being separated
from his presence, being forsaken by God isn’t the same as hell itself. Or if it is,
then maybe hell isn’t that bad after all because there are many people, especially
atheists, who in fact don’t seek out the presence of God in their lives, and they’re
not exactly experiencing all kinds of torment. Just go and ask some person who
lives life without prayer or concern for God whether their separation from God is
painful. They’ll probably say that it isn’t.
If this is true, isn’t what we just said a serious objection not simply to our
concept of hell, but even to the nature of Christ’s misery on the cross?
It is, and if it is true, then we’ve got some serious challenges here on our hands.
But we need to think this through a little further, because it will help us understand
hell’s deepest mystery, as well as Christ’s cry of misery all the more.
Yes, there is some truth to this objection because it is true that we can actually
overlook God our entire lives without ever becoming clear about what we are
losing when we overlook him. This is the case for all happy-go-lucky unbelievers
-- their ignorance is bliss.
It needs however to be said that at present in this world, God’s presence is not
fully enjoyed the way it was in the garden, nor as it will be on the new earth. We
only get the first fruits, a simple taste of better things to come. Furthermore, as
Scripture says, God pours out rain and blessings on believers and unbelievers
alike in this world. There is such a thing as common grace for all people. So the
level or the divide between unbelievers and believers as far as joy goes, isn’t as
great as it could be.
However, and this is the important point, there will be a day, there will be a
moment in time when every single human being who has ever lived will and must
recognize God as God, as Lord of lords and King of kings. Whether that happens
at the moment of our death or is reserved for judgement day, that’s hard to
explain; however, all people must see and must believe the truth about God as
God. He will show his perfect presence to them.
But here’s the clincher. Is not hell simply the situation in which we must recognize
God as God without anymore being able to come to him? I repeat: Is not
hell simply the situation in which we must recognize God as God without
anymore being able to come to him? As long as I don’t know that from which I
have been cut off, namely God, the separation really causes me no pain and
misery. What or whom I don’t really know doesn’t really hurt me. But if there is
a time when EVERY KNEE WILL BOW DOWN before this incredible and
indescribably great God, while at the same time, having been told, "Away from
me, I have never known you," well -- that hurts! That is to suffer the torment and
forsakenness of hell.
CONCLUSION:
Jesus knew, as no other human being could, what separation from God would
mean. He knew God’s love, he knew God’s fellowship, and the thought of being
away from it even for a short time forced him to cry out, "My God, My God,
why have you forsaken me?" "Where are you?" It was hell on earth....But Jesus
knew one other thing. It was either hell for him, or it was hell for us.
As Martin Luther said, "Who can understand it?" And it’s true. Who would want
to be our substitute? Who can understand such love?
Praise to the name of Jesus, Amen
Prayer: Lord God Almighty, just as we cannot begin to understand the depth of
the misery that Christ bore in our place on the cross, we cannot begin to understand
the depth of the love "for us" that it took for your son to hang on the cross
and for you to send him there. Our prayer is that you will stir your Spirit within
us so that we are always kept near the cross. We pray this in Jesus name, Amen.
