Summary: Hard as it is to imagine, on the cross Jesus was forsaken even by God. For his sacrifice to be efficacious, it couldn't have happened any other way.
There's a religious song we sometimes hear this time of year. It was made famous by the late Kate Smith. The refrain goes like this:
He could have called ten thousand angels
To destroy the world and set Him free
He could have called ten thousand angels
But He died alone for you and me1
The song, of course, is about Jesus Christ, dying on the Cross. The song tells of the power Jesus had as Son of God, before he left the heavenly places and was born a human on earth. As Lord of heaven, Jesus could surely have called 10,000 angels. He could have done it anytime he wanted. But here's the question this song calls to mind: Could Jesus have called 10,000 angels as he was hanging on the cross? Could he have counted on them to sweep in like the cavalry in an old-time movie Western, to spring him from Roman custody?
If he'd had such power - and if he'd used it - it would have been the biggest, flashiest jailbreak in history. The Hollywood special-effects wizards would have an absolute field day trying to engineer that one.
Superhero movies are big these days: the Marvel comic universe, the unending series of Batman films and so many others. Just imagine the crucifixion story reconfigured as a pulp-fiction superhero narrative. Imagine the trailer for that one: You thought Batman was thrilling. You couldn't imagine a bigger match-up than the The Guardians of the Galaxy dream team. You've always yearned to visit Wakanda, realm of the Black Panther. Now, get ready for the greatest superhero film of all time: The Crucifixion! It's the ultimate grudge match. Watch 10,000 screaming angelic warriors free the Son of God and wipe the Roman Empire off the map. (Parental discretion advised.)
Yes, we can imagine Jesus calling down a host of angels, but that's the sinful side of us at work - the side that's quick to imagine violence as the go-to solution for any problem. It's the side of us that loves vengeance better than mercy. Yes, speaking purely in the abstract - and thinking of Jesus both as he was before he came to earth, and as he is today, reigning over all in glory - Jesus could have called 10,000 angels. Past and future Jesus, yes - but what about the present Jesus, as described in the Gospels? What about Jesus crucified? In that particular moment in history, as our Lord hangs there, bleeding and dying upon the cross, calling down an army of angels is not something he can do. The song is simply wrong about that.
And why is it wrong? The reason is simple. Our Hebrew scripture lesson for today, from Isaiah chapters 52 and 53, contains one of Isaiah's famous "servant songs." The church has always regarded these servant songs as prophecies about Jesus. Isaiah 53:3 says: "He was despised and rejected by others; a man of suffering and acquainted with infirmity ..." How can we claim Jesus is "despised and rejected by others" if he has a battalion of angels hunkered down in their trenches on hair-trigger alert, just waiting for the command, "All right, troops, over the top!"? Had that had been true, Jesus on the cross would have been neither despised nor rejected.
The apostle Paul puts it another way. In Philippians 2:7-8 - probably words Paul borrows from an early Christian hymn - we hear of how Jesus:
emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
assuming human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a human,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death -
even death on a cross.
Don't miss that word, "emptied." In Greek, it's kenosis. It means that whatever majesty, whatever authority, whatever power Jesus had as Son of God, second person of the Trinity, co-eternal with the Father and the Son, he's relinquished. After "emptying himself, taking the form of a slave," Jesus can no longer summon one angel, let alone 10,000 of them. He can't do it. In becoming human, he's voluntarily closed off that possibility.
A little earlier, in the Garden of Gethsemane, as he wrestled with the decision to remain obedient, the only thing he could do was to turn to God in prayer - just like any of us. The only person who could "take this cup away" was God the Father. Jesus didn't say, then, "What do you think, Dad? Hasn't this little drama gone on long enough? Want me to overturn that cup now?" - because overturning that cup was something he could not do. The witness of scripture is clear. Our Lord Jesus Christ had shed every bit of his divine power. How else could he have become human?
Think of the wider implications. Throughout his earthly life up to that point, Jesus suffered and struggled, feared and doubted, bled and died - just like any of us. The scriptures teach that he was unlike us in but two respects - his ability to perform miracles and that he did not sin, and therefore went to the cross blameless - but in every other way he was human. This is why he was led to cry out from the cross in agony, quoting the words of Psalm 22: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Do you think he didn't really mean it? Do you think his cry of dereliction is just a line from a play, spoken for our benefit - as an actor declaims upon the stage? Do you think Jesus knew, as he uttered those words, that everything would come out okay in the end? Do you think his death - that was even then wrapping its cold, bony fingers around his neck and starting to squeeze - was not really death, as we know it from the experience of others (and will one day know it ourselves)?
No. When Jesus cried out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" we must take him at face value. He meant what he was saying. He truly feels Godforsaken.
That's a colorful word, "Godforsaken." It hardly even sounds like an English word. It's more like one of those compound German words: schadenfreude or weltanschauung, or even the lowly pepper-cookie, the pfeffernusse. The German language has that capability of combining shorter words together in a long string. This is a rare instance in which the English language allows us to do so - because no other word captures the sense of abandonment and desolation, the fear and anxiety, the doubt and despair, as "Godforsaken."
Sometimes we speak of "a Godforsaken place." It's an expression reserved for the driest of deserts, the most isolated of islands, the most barren of landscapes. The geography of the human heart it describes is equally desolate. It reflects what our Lord is feeling, there on the cross. The pain he feels in his body is only the half of it. The sense of abandonment that tears at his heart is every bit as agonizing - maybe even more so.
It's a wonder this is even the case. Paul says, in 1 Corinthians 1:23, "we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to gentiles." It truly is a stumbling block - in other words, it makes no logical sense. It makes no sense to us that one such as Jesus would empty himself and become a slave - no, even lower than a slave - and allow himself, Son of God, to become Godforsaken.
Christian essayist G.K. Chesterton captures the sheer absurdity of it as he observes: "When the world shook and the sun was wiped out of heaven, it was not at the crucifixion, but at the cry from the cross: the cry which confessed that God was forsaken of God."2
We don't like to think - nor even imagine - that "God was forsaken of God." God's supposed to stay in heaven, and all is supposed to remain right with the world. The crucifixion was the one time in the history of the universe when that did not happen, when the fundamental balance of creation was thrown off, when chaos seemed briefly to reign, when the interrelationship of the three persons of the Trinity was severed, when darkness descended in mid-afternoon and the very earth rocked and reeled.
How can we even comprehend it? Yes, there are many theories of the atonement, of why and how Jesus had to suffer and die so human sins could be forgiven. None of them, at the end of the day, answers every question. Our human minds are just too small to take in the mystery of the Incarnation, the complexity of the inner workings of the Trinity, the marvel of divine grace.
Yet, though none of us can understand why or how the crucifixion happened, we can affirm we're awfully glad it did happen. We're glad because, when we look on Calvary from afar, from the perspective of more than 20 centuries - at the spectacle of "God forsaken of God," as Chesterton puts it - we know that because of what Christ has done, we will never be Godforsaken in quite the same way. Through every trial and tribulation, through every pain or struggle divine Providence may in the future place in our path, we will always be able to look to the cross of Jesus and know that we are not alone, that there is one in the heavenly places praying for us, one who knows what it means to be human.
Maybe this is what the hymn-writers of Scotland's Iona Community were thinking about when they penned the words to this little hymn - words that reflect the viewpoint of faithful believers, gazing up at our Lord on the cross:
Wonder and stare,
fear and beware,
heaven and hell are close at hand.
God's living word,
Jesus the Lord,
follows where faith and love demand.3
If you've ever wondered what it is that's good about Good Friday, this is it. We would never be so bold as to ask one such as Jesus to go to the cross for us - in no way do we deserve it - but our Lord has done so, anyway, of his own accord. For that, we are grateful beyond words.