(4) ‘ELI, ELI, Iama Sabachthani’ - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me”
(Matthew 27.46; Mark 15.34).
At the hour of His death, Jesus feels the separation that death creates. He feels the emotional depths of His impending death. He feels the immensity of the weight of death as His Father lays the sin of the world on His shoulders.
He feels the immensity of His physical pain as the nails tear at His hands and feet. He still feels the agony of the beatings and torture from the night before. Thy physical strain of carrying the cross as far as He did left Him exhausted.
Trying to breathe through the weight of His sagging body made Him feel as though He was drowning. Watching the pain of His family as they watched the horror of His crucifixion had to be another agony impossible to imagine. No wonder He felt forsaken by His Father in heaven. Unless one dies peacefully in sleep, perhaps there is always the loneliness of our journey through death towards eternal life with which one can identify with Jesus. It will be for each one of us as Johnny Cash sings the words; “nobody else can walk it for us, we have to walk it by ourselves.”
And while we may feel forsaken as Jesus did, we know that we are never alone. I think of the words of David in Psalm 23.4. “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.”
We’re on a mission to exhort and encourage every person 50+, every person getting closer to retirement season and every person in retirement season to embrace a vision for all that God desires for them in this critically important season of life.
God is at work through FWM. New people. New contacts. New churches. New leaders.
It’s like throwing a stone into the water and watching the concentric circles begin to go wider and wider – even beyond the borders of our country.
Would you please consider supporting us financially?
Happy Easter, Hal
The Seven Last Words From Christ On The Cross