Mark 15:33-47: Why Have You Forsaken Me?

(1) Bible Study Questions

1. What is the meaning of the darkness over the land between 12 noon and 3 pm? (v. 33; Amos 8:9-10; Exod 10:21-23)

2. Why do you think Jesus asks his question of God? (see Ps 22:1ff)

3. What happens to the temple curtain and why? (Heb 10:19-22)

4. What is the significance of the centurion’s words?

5. What does Joseph of Arimathea do and why? (cf. Isa 53:9)

Stop and thank God that Christ Jesus, God’s Son, has opened a way to God through the curtain.

(2) Sermon Script

Introduction: Being Forsaken

Have you experienced being forsaken? Have you ever been deserted or abandoned? We hear occasionally of a young mother who abandons her child at a hospital or police station. But there are different ways of being abandoned. A child says to another, “I’m not your friend anymore”. A teenager says to their boyfriend or girlfriend—“you’re dropped!” A fiancé, wife, or husband walks out. A worker is given a forced redundancy or is retrenched. Your skills are no longer necessary for our business. Your job no longer exists. Or an elderly person is left in a nursing home, rarely visited by family.

Perhaps some of you have been accused of abandoning loved ones, after you have come to the conclusion that the only alternative for them is a nursing home, or when you check in your mentally ill loved one into hospital. Whether you have been abandoned, or the alleged abandoner, we can know this, that Jesus knows all about being forsaken or abandoned. Indeed, throughout the last part of Mark chapter 14 and all of chapter 15, we see that Jesus has been thoroughly abandoned by those who should have stuck by him.

Forsaken by Man

We see Jesus forsaken by men. We read in Isaiah: “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering.” And that is what we see here.

Disciples

His disciples desert him. Chapter 14 verse 50 says that “everyone deserted him and fled”. Peter said he would die with Jesus, but he swears “I don’t know him” at the gentle prodding of a young servant girl. And Judas, one of the 12, sold his saviour for silver. This was the ultimate abandonment, a betrayal of Jesus for money.

Justice

But justice, too, seems to have abandoned Jesus. We read that the Jewish religious leaders trump up the chargers. It is a case looking for a cause. In chapter 14 verse 35 we read, “the chief priests and the whole Sanhedrin were looking for evidence against Jesus so that they could put him to death.” And when they take Jesus to Pilate, because they cannot kill him themselves, Pilate knows he was innocent. Chapter 15 verse 10 tells us that Pilate knew “it was out of envy that the chief priests had handed Jesus over to him”. And then in verse 11, we read, “they stirred up the crowd against Jesus.”

They say a week is a long time in politics. Just a week ago, Jerusalem gave Jesus their version of the ticker tape parade, and rolled out the red carpet. That is what we remember on Palm Sunday. But now they no longer wave palm branches but fists. Give us a murderer instead of Jesus. As a result, in chapter 15 verse 15, we read:

Wanting to satisfy the crowd, Pilate released Barabbas to them, and he had Jesus flogged, and handed him over to be crucified.

Neither the love of his friends nor the justice of his cause has endured. The abandonment of Jesus by men is total.

Forsaken According to Plan

Now, it looks like Jesus has lost control. A week ago, Jerusalem celebrated his coming. Now they bey for his blood. That’s quite a public relations disaster.

It begs the question, what went wrong? The answer is, “nothing’. Things are going to plan—Jesus’ plan. The situation is just as Jesus expected and prayed for. For he came to do his Father’s will. As we read Mark’s Gospel, we get to see how Jesus was planning and predicting his suffering since chapter 8. The passion of the Christ is not just the last six hours of Jesus life, nor even the last 60 hours—no matter what Mel Gibson’s movie leads us to believe. The passion of the Christ started the day he set his face at Caesarea Phillipi to make that last preaching tour that would terminate, and him with it, in Jerusalem. Three times he clearly said to his disciples, that he must be killed, and after three days rise again. In chapters 8, 9, and 10, repeatedly he reminded his disciples, I am going to Jerusalem to die and rise again. By parable and prediction, he warned that he would die. His parable of the tenants in the temple steeled his enemies will against him, to kill him. His prayer in the Garden steeled his own will to do his Father’s will and drink the cup of suffering.

But, to tell you the truth, Jesus was planning the passion long before these things. For this death of Jesus fulfills Old Testament Scriptures.

Reading Mark’s account of Jesus’ passion, you see, is a bit like going for a bushwalk at Katoomba. You walk a little way from the tourist shops, and you feel like you are striding out where no-man has gone before—I too am a pioneer, a trailblazer. Then, of course, I see the empty chip packets and abandoned soft drink cans, and hear the party of Japanese tourists, and I remember that these are well trod paths.

Mark has left us lots of hints that these sufferings were predicted in the Old Testament. The way Jesus dies fulfills the Old Testament. Mark records Jesus’ cry just as he was about to die, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is a quote from Psalm 22. In fact, Jesus’ death fulfills more than the first verse. It is as if Jesus, as he submitted to his death, was ticking off the different verses as “yes, I’ve done that one”.

Psalm 22:7-8 says, “All who see me mock me; they hurl insults, shaking their heads: He trusts in the Lord, let the Lord rescue him.” And this scripture was fulfilled by the crowds unwittingly quoting the psalm as they abused Jesus.

Psalm 22:16 says, “a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet.” That is the definition of crucifixion.

Psalm 22:18 says, “They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.” Tick—done that one too.

Likewise, we see the cross as simply the fulfillment of Isaiah 53. Isaiah 53:3 tells us, “He was despised and rejected by men”, hence the abandonment by humans.

Isaiah 53:6 tells us, “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities”, again, foreshadowing the crucifixion.

Isaiah 53:7 goes on, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth.” That is why Jesus was so quiet during the trials, not responding to the Jewish leadership’s false allegations.

And in Isaiah 53:9 we read, “He was assigned a grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death.” We learn from elsewhere that Joseph of Arimathea was rich, and thus he owned his own tomb, a powerful and respected man in the Sanhedrin.

So the crucifixion is a story of Jesus in control. Not only during his own life and ministry was Jesus predicting these events, but hundreds of years before his birth the Old Testament prophets spoke by his own Spirit, the Spirit of Christ in them planning and predicting the time and manner of his sufferings.

Forsaken by God—Why?

But the amazing thing about Jesus’ death is who he holds responsible. He doesn’t say “Judas, Judas, why have you forsaken me?”—although that would be a fair enough question. He doesn’t say “Peter, Peter, why have you forsaken me?”, though Peter did forsake him, despite his affirmations and protestations, with all the rest of the disciples. He doesn’t say “Pilate, Pilate”, or “Chief Priests”. Nor does he fundamentally hold the people, the crowd, responsible. He doesn’t ask “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, why have you forsaken me?”, though he could have.

Rather, the person he holds responsible is God his Father: verse 34, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

And that raises the question, Why this patent miscarriage of justice?

Now at one level, the question itself is a rhetorical question, because Jesus is quoting Psalm 22, as we have seen. And Jesus has already said why he is going to die. Mark 10:45:

The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’

Jesus has answered his own question long ago in Mark’s Gospel. He dies in fulfillment of the Old Testament scriptures, as a sin offering, to give his life as a ransom for many. But the already given answer is in our passage expanded and enriched by the strange phenomena reported for us, the cataclysmic events that occur at the time of Jesus’ death. For these acts of God that accompany Jesus’ death also tell us what his death means.

Darkness (v. 33)

Thus, in verse 33 we read, “At the sixth hour darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour.” From noon to 3pm the land grows dark. Now, what does this mean? Darkness and blackness is a symbol of God’s judgment on sin. In the Exodus, God turned the land of the Egyptians dark for three days (Exod 10:21-23). In Amos, darkness is God’s judgment on the corrupt people of Israel (Amos 8:9-10). Verses 9 to 10 of Amos says, “I will make the sun go down at noon and darken the earth in broad daylight […] I will make that time like mourning for an only son and the end of it like a bitter day”.

When Jesus dies, a great judgment has occurred. Jesus was always perfect and good and right and did nothing deserving God’s anger. But when he died, he took the full force of God’s hatred of sin. God’s just anger at sin was concentrated on this one person at this one point in time. That is the meaning of our Old Testament reading from Isaiah 53:

He was pierced for our sin, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds you are healed. We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (NIV)

It is as if God takes a huge magnifying glass, and as a boy might concentrate the suns rays to burn a dried leaf, so God concentrates his just outrage against our sin on Jesus here in time and space at the cross. Jesus is accepting our punishment in our place for our sins instead of us. Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him (2 Cor 5:21).

But the greatest comment on Jesus death is what immediately follows. Look at verses 37 to 39:

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. 38The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. 39And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heart his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

The Ripped Curtain (v. 38)

At the moment of Jesus’ death, the great curtain of the temple tore in two from top to bottom. The temple curtain here described was the one that separated the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place. This was the place where only the high priest could go, and only once a year, and only after he killed lots of top quality farm animals as sacrifices for his own sins and the sins of the people.

This curtain was ripped from top to bottom, showing that God, not man, did it. It was ripped in two to show that we have free access to God now. With Jesus’ death, we can now approach the holy God with confidence, because Jesus our high priest, offered himself as a sacrifice for us, once and for all. Jesus’ death has made the temple obsolete, for now we have free access to God.

Friends, we can now approach God, and enter ‘the Holy of Holies’, because we can come to God through Jesus, whose death is the basis of the forgiveness of all our sins.

The Centurion’s Confession (v. 39)

The second thing that I want to point out is the response of the Roman Centurion in verse 39:

And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God.”

This centurion was the leader of those who crucified Jesus. He led the violent party that whipped, mocked, humiliated, and killed him. While Jesus lived, they wanted him dead. But after he dies comes the realization that he is the Son of God. It is not so much that Jesus is only appreciated when he is dead, but more that the cross is where we really see who Jesus is. The cross is an act of revelation—for Jesus is the suffering and serving Son of Man who gives his life as a ransom for many.

Mark told us in chapter 1 verse 1, his very first pen stroke, that Jesus iss God’s son. And throughout the Gospel of Mark, God himself is recorded as testifying twice that Jesus is his Son: when Jesus was baptized, and when he was transfigured on the mountain. Twice, “this is my beloved Son” boomed from heaven. But it is only in his death that the people he has come to die for realize who Jesus is. It seems a horrible disaster, a tragic absurdity, that God sends his only Son into the world, that he walked around doing good and healing people, and after it all the only accusation that his enemies could level at him was, “So you are the Son of God”, and when he gives the truthful affirmative answer, out of envy and jealousy humans kill him, only to realize when he dies, seemingly, when it’s all too late, that he spoke the truth. Peter later puts it bluntly: “You killed the author of life”. It’s absurd, isn’t it?

Some time ago I was listening to Radio Australia, and there was an Israeli writer being interviewed. He told the story of a terrorist who was going to suicide bomb a bus, but then he decided when he got there to just throw his bomb. As a result, he succeeded in only killing one passenger and injuring himself. The passenger he killed was Israel’s only guide dog expert and the bomb blinded him. So from now on he needed a guide dog, and he killed the only person who could have trained a guide dog for him! It’s an absurdity, it seems like a sick joke. Is Jesus’ death like this? Is the black humour of the movie “A Beautiful Life”, where the hero at the end of the movie, after keeping his son safe through the horrors of the war, as the war comes to a close, simply ends up shot and killed, a macabre, meaningless murder. I saw it in the movie theatre, but I’ve never been able to watch it again because of that.

No, Jesus’ death is not a macabre absurdity. It is only in his death that we see that Jesus is the Son of God. Like the centurion, it is at the cross that we see what God and Christ is like. The God who humbled himself, got on his knees, got blood on his hands and climbed up onto the cross for us—that is what God is like. And through the blood and death and abuse, we see that God enters into our suffering, and is at his core self-sacrificial. For though Jesus was in very nature God, he didn’t consider equality with God something to grasped but he humbled himself and taking on human nature, he became obedient to the death of a cross.

The cross is where God wears his heart on his sleeve, and the centurion was the first to see this and confess it. As Jesus said, he descended to earth not to be served, but to serve, and give his life as a ransom for many.

Forsaken For You

So how do we answer Jesus’ question, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Why was God so far from saving his Son?

The only conclusion we can come to is this: it was for us. It was for you and me. Jesus was forsaken for my sins and for yours: for the sin of Adam we share, for our past sins, and even for the sins we haven’t yet committed. Jesus was forsaken so that God would not forsake us.

So, while Jesus is being deserted by everyone, in some way even by his Father, everything is going to plan, the plan of Jesus the Son, and the plan of his Father. God wanted this to happen. He saw it must take place. It fulfills the Old Testament, written hundreds of years before. It fulfills the desire of the heart of God the Father and God the Son, to save us from our sins and spare us the judgment that our sins deserve.

So there is only one response, really. We stand too need to stand with the murderous and violent centurion at the foot of the cross, and see Jesus as the Son of God. So the cross is the birthplace of faith.

If Jesus is the Son of God, if Jesus did not lie under oath at his trial, and if the centurion is right, life must change. We must put our lives in his hands. Life cannot be the same. You cannot just walk out of church today and say, “Oh well, been to church at Easter—that’s my duty done for another year. I don’t have to worry about Jesus and church and bible till Christmas. What vain things can I fill my life with? What are the pursuits with which I can fill my remaining days under the sun, the spack filler that renders my remaining days a little more comfortable?

If it is true that Jesus is the Son of God, everything must change. Life can never be the same. The changes that will come to your life are cataclysmic. When you stand at the foot of the cross and look up, when Christ is clearly portrayed as crucified to us, there must be all kinds of changes in thinking, in actions, in purpose, and in goals.

Then again, of course, you and I can just walk away from the Son of God. After all, everyone has rejected him anyway. Jesus is very used to being ignored, despised, rejected. Oh well, another yawning church service. I won’t get that hour back, now that I’ve given it another God-botherer, another bible thumper.

For there were others who stood at the base of the cross, and walked home unchanged. There were others who looked up at the bleeding and dying saviour and then thought, “Another troublemaker dispatched. I wonder what’s happening this afternoon.

Let me pray for us.