It has always striking to me when reading the Gospels that Jesus would say, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.” Wasn’t Jesus God? How can one forsake himself? Was there a time on earth where Jesus stopped being God? Of course, I’d heard the typical pastoral response to that quote – God couldn’t look at Jesus when he had the weight of the world’s sin on him. There may be some truth to that. I don’t know. It’s not actually in the text. A teacher of mine reminded me though that this was simply a quote from Psalm 22 (as are the other “last sayings of Jesus” in the Gospels).
In his time of greatest trials, Jesus turned to Scripture he had put to memory. Even in his last breaths, he was giving us a model of honoring God. Wow! I’ve never forgotten that.
