Here is the cry of dereliction, the cry of abandonment, from the derelict, the abandoned one. The cry is reported in both Mark and Matthew. The Greek word used suggests that he screamed with a loud cry, “My God, my God, for what reason have you forsaken me?” Why? Why this? It is though something had gone horribly wrong. It was not supposed to be this way.
In Luke’s account, the starkness of the horror is tempered. “And having cried out with a loud cry, Jesus said, ‘Father, into your hands I place my spirit.’ Having said this, he expired.” Luke does not tell us what he cried with a loud cry, but we may assume it was the cry of dereliction reported by Matthew and Mark. In John’s account, the ending strikes a different note. It is almost tranquil, a going to sleep after accomplishing the great work he had been sent to do. “Jesus said, ‘It is finished’; and having bowed his head, he gave over the spirit.” As we have already seen, in John’s Gospel the glory of resurrection victory is already present on the cross. We must hold all four Gospels together, however, to capture the many dimensions of the death by which the world is born again. John’s Gospel does not deny the horror; it anticipates the glory that is on the far side of dereliction.
“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” This is the opening line of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” The Hebrew differs slightly between Matthew and Mark. Perhaps Jesus cried out in Aramaic, the language of his everyday world. But, whether in Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, the English word “dereliction” catches the desperateness of the scene. Like a derelict boat cast upon the shore, like a dog carcass lying by the roadside, here is something no longer of any account; it is forsaken, abandoned, thrown aside. Roadkill.
All the while they mocked him. “You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself by coming down from the cross!” “He saved others, but he cannot save himself.” “Let God deliver him if he cares for him for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’” With slight variations, all four Gospels report a threefold mockery. In this story, things happen in threes. In Gethsemane Jesus prays three times and three times comes back to find the disciples sleeping. Peter denies him three times. The three mockeries at the end of Jesus’ life match the three temptations by Satan at the beginning of his ministry. Satan prefaced his temptations with, “If you are the Son of God…” And so the echo at the cross: “if you are the Son of God.” Satan is there at the cross.
The past is returning with a vengeance. Mary had whispered to the baby, “You will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and of our kingdom there will be no end.” Now in his death struggle the words of Mary and the angel, almost word for word, are thrown back at him, spittle-sprayed with derision. In Matthew’s account, the connection between the three temptations and the three mockeries are especially clear. Back then in the wilderness he could have met Satan’s challenges. He could have changed the stones into bread; he could have jumped safely from the pinnacle of the temple; he could have held political sway over the world. And so now he could have met the challenge of those who mocked; he could come down from the cross and silence those who are ridiculing his claim to be the Son of God. But had he done so in the wilderness, and if he does so now on Golgotha, he would not be who he claims to be; he would not be the Son living out in perfect obedience the Father’s will. Only as he remains on the cross to the death does Jesus prove that he is indeed the Son of God.
God is present in his apparent absence. God’s absence is embodied in the body of Israel and in the extension of that body, the New Israel, which is the Church. God is present in the forsaken so that nobody—nobody ever, nobody anywhere at any time under any circumstance—is forsaken.
If, as St. Paul says, Christ who knew no sin was made sin for us, can there be any sin he did not bear there on the cross? If the answer is no, then even the utterly forsaken are not bereft of the company of the utterly forsaken one, the Son of God, and therefore not bereft of hope. Thus even the will to damnation is damned and thereby defeated by the One for whom and in whom damnation is not allowed the last word.
Excerpts from Death On A Friday Afternoon by Richard John Neuhaus.
