 Why did Jesus ask the Father why he forsook him on the cross? Jesus obviously knew what he was doing and why he was doing it. Is it a translation thing or is it something more esoteric? Yeah, I think it's it's a genuine expression of feeling God has forsaken him. I would just say this generally before We want to jump into some things that I think are helpful here To affirm the humanity of Jesus is not to deny his deity here Any more than when he doesn't know what day or hour, you know, he's going to return So in a nutshell and I'm I'm gonna read a section from an important book about the You know the crucifixion. It's called the death of the Messiah. It's by Raymond Brown. Who's was a very famous New Testament scholar Father Raymond Brown. He was a Catholic scholar, but his his special specialization was the Gospels And this is one of the the major works on You know, just like the title says the death of the Messiah, but in a nutshell Jesus knows why he's doing what he's doing that he's he's there to defeat the you know, the powers of darkness and you know, have the solution for you know The fact that you know, we have to overcome death and the Lord of the dead and all this sort of stuff He knows, you know Psalms that are gonna be read in hindsight about resurrect. He knows all this stuff Okay, but yet it's a very human thing for him to feel left alone and in despair You know, he prays and gets so many, you know, if it's possible, you know, please, you know, take this cup from me And you know, but it turns out it's not and so when he has to bear the sins of the world and God doesn't intervene and do it a different way. I think this is a genuine expression of Despair. Jesus is human. He's not just God. He is God, but he's also human And this is one of those things where I think we just need to take it at face value and not try to dress it up and Pretend it isn't there anymore like I said a few minutes ago About Jesus not knowing the precise day or hour that he's gonna return There the humanity of Christ shows in different passages in different ways I think we have an instance of that here Now I like the what I like the way brown Discusses this I think he he does a a nice job of capturing this idea. He says and this is from the death of the Messiah Pages 1048-1048 this is a massive book He says a particular eschatological aspect is the final battle with evil in language echoing Isaiah 11 for According to 2nd Thessalonians 2 8th the Lord Jesus Slays the lawless one with the breath or the spirit the pneuma of his mouth in Acts 8 7 we have you know this this idea of Boa or phonemegale is this great voice great sound to describe the shriek of unclean spirits as In defeat when they come out of the possessed so he's he's comparing this language to the language of Jesus anguish You know the when he cries out Does the violent description of Jesus outcry? This is brown now Suggested in his death struggle with evil. He feels himself on the brink of defeat So that he must ask why God is not helping him In any good drama the last words of the main character are especially significant It is important for us then to ask how literally we should take my God my God for what reason Have you forsaken me again quoting from Psalm 22 verse 2? Brown says there is much to encourage us to take it very literally on the level of the evangelist portrayal of Jesus in the tragic drama of Mark and Matthew in the passion narrative Jesus has been abandoned by his disciples and Mocked by all who have come to the cross Darkness has covered the earth. There is nothing that shows God acting on Jesus side How appropriate that Jesus feel forsaken his why? Now the question is that of someone who has plumbed the depths of the abyss and feels enveloped by the power of darkness Jesus is not questioning the existence of God or the power of God to do something about what is happening He is questioning the silence of the one whom he calls my God If we pay attention to the overall structure of Mark and Matthew in the passion narrative That form of addressing the deity is itself significant for nowhere previously has Jesus ever prayed to God as God Mark and Matthew begin the passion narrative with a prayer in which the deity was addressed by Jesus as father The common form of address used by Jesus and one that captured his familial confidence that God would not make the son go through The hour or to drink the cup Yet that filial prayer reiterated three times was not visibly or audibly answered and Now having endured the seemingly endless agony of the hour and having drunk the dregs of the cup Jesus screams out a final prayer that is an inclusion with the first prayer Feeling forsaken as if he were not being heard He no longer presumes to speak intimately to the all-powerful as father But employs the address common to all human beings my God brown continues I'll give you a little bit more of an excerpt here on theological grounds Some challenge more directly a literal interpretation of mark and Matthew The charge is made that to take literally the wording about God forsaking or abandoning Jesus would be to deny Jesus divinity Certainly mark did not imply such a denial for immediately after Jesus prayer in 1534 We find the climactic confession of Jesus as God's son. That's mark 1539 Still another objection finds despair being attributed to Jesus in a literal interpretation of the prayer Despair understood as the loss of hope in God or of salvation is considered a major sin And the new testament affirms that Jesus committed no sin. This is a rather pointless objection However, for nothing in the mark and passage suggests A sense of the loss of salvation or forgiveness or even the need thereof Jesus is praying and so he cannot have lost hope. In other words, if he'd lost hope, why would he pray? Calling God my God implies trust Because he saw how Jesus died the mark and centurion confesses that Jesus was God's son Mark could not have meant that Jesus despair prompted such a recognition Thus despair in the strict sense is not envisaged rather the issue is whether the struggle with evil will lead to victory And Jesus is portrayed as profoundly discouraged at the end of his long battle Because God to whose will Jesus committed himself at the beginning of the passion Has not intervened in the struggle and seemingly has left Jesus unsupported That this is not true Will become apparent the second that Jesus dies For then God will rend the sanctuary veil And bring a pagan again the centurion to acknowledge publicly Jesus divine sonship Jesus cries out hoping that God will break through the alienation He has felt that's I'll just stop there with brown. I think that's really a good description that honors the the transparent reading of the text and and Let's it be what it is It's a human expression You know that we've gone through this whole battle and and you know, like God isn't intervening But you know, there are ways to read it and ways to not read it And and brown goes through the ways to not read it and gives examples from the same passages that contradict flawed conclusions About how we should read this again in that section. I just gave you that's what that's exactly what brown does So he's saying there are ways to read this and ways not to read it And and you don't read it certain ways because if you read the whole passage and the things that immediately follow You'll find out how you're not supposed to read it. How you're not supposed to regard Jesus despair But nevertheless, he leaves it in place. He doesn't try to pretend. It's not real