In Matthew’s account of the Passion, Jesus’ last words are “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27: 46) Then, He uttered a loud cry and gave up His spirit.
This final exclamation from the Cross is the opening of Psalm 22, one of the psalms of lament.
Psalm 22 is unusual, both in its structure and intensity of feeling, as the psalmist is overwhelmed by suffering and the perception of being completely abandoned by God.
As a faithful Jew, the Lord would certainly have known this prayer well, as He shouted it in His final crucified agony.
Without ever having sinned, Jesus tasted to the full the consequence of our sin, which is death.
As the sacrificial Lamb, He took upon Himself the totality of our alienation from God. St. Paul says this well: “He who knew no sin was made sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5: 21)
By shouting out the words of Psalm 22, the Lord is identifying with our darkness, sin, and desperation. He enters into our dark night in order to crush its power from within.
By dying, He destroys the power of death in a definitive and absolute way.
Dealing with spiritual darkness
Our spiritual lives contain both moments of light and darkness, times when God feels very close, and others when all the doors and windows to the divine feel as though they are shut against us.
We experience both deep consolation in prayer, and often long stretches of dryness when nothing seems to be happening.
Especially when we suffer, our faith is tested, and we can feel as if we are descending into a pit of terrifying darkness. God can seem very distant and silent.
When I feel that spiritual darkness, I find Jesus’ words from the Cross very consoling.
Jesus entered into the dark night as well. He tasted death for us all and came out on the other side in the glory of the Resurrection.
In His humanity, He felt the rejection of His people and profound abandonment from the vast majority of those He had so generously loved and served.
Yet, He radically trusted in the mercy and love of the Father, even though the Father remained silent as His beloved Son hung upon the Cross.
Christianity is the world religion that takes human suffering the most seriously, viewing in the crucifixion of Christ, the complete identification of God with our existential predicament of evil, sin, and death.
When we feel overwhelmed by suffering, when we seek rational answers to the mystery of tragedy, when we want to know if God cares about us in our misery, all we need to do is look at the crucifix.
There, we see Jesus bending His head to kiss us, His arms open wide to embrace us, and His feet nailed fast to pardon our sins.
The excruciating death of the Lord is God’s answer to our cry of feeling abandoned by Him in the darkest of our nights.
If God went into the crucible of absolute suffering Himself, then He can certainly empathize with my struggles, questions, and despair.
The fact that He is suffering with us, indeed with all of humanity, until the end of the world opens us up to understanding the compassion of God.
Cling to the crucifix
Protestants hang up crosses. Catholics hang up and venerate crucifixes. Why the difference?
Protestants would say that Jesus is no longer on the Cross, so why keep Him there in our artistic depictions?
Such an opinion views the crucifixion as a one-time historical event, one and done. Catholics see it differently.
Because He loves us so, Jesus Christ continues to suffer in the broken body of humanity, in His brothers and sisters, who are afflicted by evil, sin, and death.
Authentic compassion is to suffer with the beloved one who is wrapped in sorrow, and so the Lord is with us, especially in our darkest and most difficult days. And so, we venerate crucifixes.
Here is how Psalm 22 ends: “You who fear the Lord, give praise! All descendants of Jacob, give honor; show reverence to all descendants of Israel! For God has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out.”
These words of hope point us to the great mystery of the Resurrection, which lies just on the other side of the Cross.
When we feel alone, lost, and abandoned, God urges us to hang on, to trust, to cling to the crucifix, and to know that He is always with us.
Because God does not change, if I perceive a change in my relationship with Him, i.e., that He has withdrawn the consolation of His presence, I need to remember that the change is in my human perception, not in Him. He is with us until the end of time.
The darkest of nights always precedes the most brilliant sunrises!