Hi all-

One of the most perplexing statements, to my mind at least, that Jesus ever made was his cry from the cross, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” Amazing.

I want to toss out some comments on this from a book I’m reading by Reynolds Price (Professor of English at Duke) and then ask some questions about what understandings of his own situation on the cross might best explain Jesus’ question.

Any interest?

Tom

Homily on "Father, if it be possible..." 

http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1910.htm

HOMILY ON THE PASSAGE "FATHER IF IT BE POSSIBLE LET THIS CUP PASS FROM ME, NEVERTHELESS NOT AS I WILL BUT AS THOU WILT": AND AGAINST MARCIONISTS AND MANICHEANS: ALSO, THAT WE OUGHT NOT TO RUSH INTO DANGER, BUT TO PREFER THE WILL OF GOD BEFORE EVERY OTHER WILL.

2.

*  "Why did the heathen rage and the people imagine vain things? The Kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ."
*  "For, he that eateth bread with me did magnify his heel against me."
*  "My God, My God why hast thou forsaken me?"
*  "They laid me in the lowest pit, in dark places, and in the shadow of death."
*  "thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither shalt thou suffer thy Holy One to see *  corruption"
*  "God has gone up with a merry noise, the Lord with the sound of the trump."
*  "for the transgressions of my people is He brought to death,"
*  "by his stripes we have all been healed:"
*  "he hath borne the sins of many."
*  "Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me."
*  "If it be permissible let me not be subjected to crucifixion and death."

*  "Be it far from thee Lord, this shall not happen unto Thee,"
*  "get thee behind me Satan, thou art an offence unto me, for thou savourest not the things which be of God, but those which be of men:"
*  "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep?"
*  "but he that is an hireling and not the shepherd seeth the wolf coming and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth."
*  "I lay down my life of myself"?
*  "Who being in the form of God counted it not a prize to be on an equality with God, but emptied Himself taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the cross."
*  "For this cause doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life that I may take it again."
*  "Love one another even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us?"
*  "Father, the hour has come: glorify thy Son,"
*  "the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified."
*  "grace was not yet given because the enmity towards men was not yet destroyed by reason that the cross had not yet done its work."
*  "for, God forbid that I should boast save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ."
*  "For God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that every one who believes m Him should not perish."
*  "If being enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son."
*  "For this generation seeketh after a sign: and no sign shall be given it save the sign of Jonas"
*  "for the Jews ask for a sign and the Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified."
*  "With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with you"

    (these quoted all by Chrysostom -- being all about the same thing)

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 7/3/2006 9:30:40 AM (GMT-5)

who me?

i haven't a clue what you're talking about...

My mind is always sharp as a tack!

...and 40? who's 40?

Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/4/2006 11:10:16 AM (GMT-5)

I've been reading Terence Freitheim's book, The Suffering of God: an Old Testament Perspective, and it's really churning the mush between my ears. (Very thought-provoking... good stuff) So I'd like to propose something that may somewhat go along with what Tom wrote.

He discusses around chapters 6-8 about some of the language in the major and minor prophets being of a "lament-accusation" nature such as in Jeremiah 2:29-32, 18:13-15, Ps 81:8, Is 48:18, etc. Basically, God states, "I have done X, Y, and Z and still you turn away from me. Why?!" to the point as if crying out through the prophet. In case anyone has the book, on p. 109 Freitheim states, "the prophet had a relationship with God that no other individual in Israel enjoyed; it was of such a character that the prophet's life was increasingly reflective of the divine life." Later Freitheim points out that much of the lamenting we see in the prophets is reflective or, in a sense, parallels that of the psalms without the accusation part... just the lamenting and anguish. The lamenting in the prophets is due to a severed relationship, and the language used demonstrates a "God who suffers because" and "with". Often in the OT we see the lamenting-accusation, then the removal of God's presence (eg. from the Temple in Ezekiel 10) due to the sins of the people, the suffering of people (where God suffers with the people), and the restoration.

Now if all this is right (and seems like a good case can be made based on what I've read... but I'm just a lay person with virtually no background in this, but anyway...), if some of the Psalms are reflective of the God's lamenting over the people abandoning God, God with the people's suffering, and God's restoring, Psalm 22 almost seems to be a reversal, or counter-image, of that... and at the cross the visual expression of that suffering that mirrors the pain that God had endured due to the people forsaking Him all throughout the prophet-books.

So on the cross, perhaps Jesus is experiencing a double rejection: 1) Jesus qua God is experiencing the rejection of the people and 2) Jesus qua Man is experiencing the rejection of God (for God finally pushing away the sin of the people that He had been bearing throughout the OT)... the ultimate pain comes from both angles onto the one (Jesus) who perfectly loves both. And quoting Psalm 22 (if it actually does sum up the lamenting in the prophets), Jesus is pointing to this double-rejection... a recollection of the prophets (the people forsaking God (and this also might help us in making sense as to why the bystanders thought that Jesus was calling for Elijah the prophet.)) and a recollection of David (God forsaking the man who represents the people).

As I said... this book is really churning the mush between the ears. I have one chapter to go, so I may have more info tomorrow. Also, is Freitheim an Open Theist? Chapter 4 seems to lean towards that.

Mention below of "feelings" reminds me that some have, in error, thought that redemption was accomplished in the Garden, instead of the Cross. (Of course the Heidelberg Catachism says--in a very Orthodox way--that "especially His death" but ALSO throughout "his whole life" Christ's passion saves us.)

You know that I accept the view that the "expiation" (propitiation is OK, depending on how far you go with it) "paid the price" to the reality of our sin and its desctructiveness. Not to the devil in an Augustinian mousetrap, not to the Father to appease anger against *us* (anger is against sin, and "tramping down death by death" was the solution). A Chinese-calvinist friend mentioned that one could even say that Christ "paid the price" TO US in the respect that we caused the need and we needed the fixing. (If a student carelessly spills ink on her paper I can "pay the price--$2.00--of giving another paper to her.)

I found this LINK helpful: http://www.oca.org/OCchapter.asp?SID=2&ID=20

According to the scriptures, man's sins and the sins of the whole world are forgiven and pardoned by the sacrifice of Christ, by the offering of His life -- His body and His blood, which is the "blood of God" (Acts 20:28) -- upon the cross. This is the "redemption," the "ransom," the "expiation," the "propitiation" spoken about in the scriptures which had to be made so that man could be "at one" with God. Christ "paid the price" which was necessary to be paid for the world to be pardoned and cleansed of all iniquities and sins (1 Cor 6:20; 7:23).

In the history of Christian doctrine there has been great debate over the question of to whom Christ "pays the price" for the ransom of the world and the salvation of mankind. . . .

 

Post Edited (jefscott) : 7/8/2006 11:42:07 AM (GMT-5)

Above I'd written:

Mention below of "feelings" reminds me that some have, in error, thought that redemption was accomplished in the Garden, instead of the Cross. (Of course the Heidelberg Catachism says--in a very Orthodox way--that "especially His death" but ALSO throughout "his whole life" Christ's passion saves us.)

Well, I found where I remembered it from. I heard it on tape; but here's the same in written form: http://www.touchstonemag.com/frpat/2005_03_20_frpatarchive.html

Maundy Thursday, March 24

The narrative tradition of the early Church, preserved especially in her liturgical practice, tended to fix our Lord’s sufferings and death in a determined sequence that became standard. This explains why all four Gospels are in substantial harmony regarding that sequence.

It also explains why all the Evangelists begin the Passion story on “the night in which He was betrayed” (1 Corinthians 11:23). In all the Gospels except John, moreover, that betrayal is preceded by an account of the Agony in the Garden.

For all that, the earliest extant version of the Agony in the Garden seems to come, not from the Gospels, but from the Epistle to the Hebrews. It is there that we read of Jesus, “who, in the days of His flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications, with vehement cries and tears to Him who was able to save Him from death, and was heard because of His godly fear, though He were a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered” (5:7-8).

In this precious text, the reference to ”vehement cries and tears” explains how the early believers knew about this event. There were witnesses to it, some of them only “a little farther” off (Matthew 26:39), “about a stone’s throw” (Luke 22:41). Those witnesses could hear those “vehement cries,” and they were able to see his kneeling posture (Mark 14:35).

All this happened, says Hebrews, “in the days of His flesh,” an expression indicating Jesus’ condition of human weakness, willingly assumed so “that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).

The object of Jesus’ “prayers and supplications,” Hebrews tells us, was deliverance from death. This feature of His prayers corresponds to the Gospel accounts in which Jesus prays that He be spared the “cup” of His coming sufferings (Matthew 26:39,42) and that “the hour might pass from Him” (Mark 14:35).

It was in this hour, says Hebrews, that Jesus “learned obedience by the things which He suffered,” a parallel to the Gospel accounts in which Jesus, in His Agony, submits His own will obediently to that of His Father (Matthew 26:39,42; Mark 14:36; Luke 22:42). Similarly, the Apostle Paul preserves part of a hymn that speaks of Jesus’ obedience unto death, “even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8).

These prayers and supplications of Jesus were themselves sacrificial, because Hebrews says that he “offered” them (prosenegkas). They are priestly prayers. That is to say, Jesus’ sacrifice has even now begun. The Lord’s Passion is a seamless whole. Already we perceive in His prayers and supplications the true essence of sacrifice, which is the inner oblation of oneself to God.

The Book of Hebrews insists, furthermore, that these “prayers and supplications” of Jesus were heard on high, precisely because of “His godly fear,” which is to say His godly piety and reverence (evlabeia; reverentia in the Latin Vulgate). Jesus’ obedient reverence is exactly what we find in the Gospel accounts of the Agony.

In what sense, then, was Jesus “heard” when he offered these prayers and supplications? Properly to answer this question, it is useful to remember a principle of all godly petition: “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14). Now Jesus prayed explicitly according to God’s will; indeed, it was the very essence of His prayer. Therefore, His prayer was heard according to God’s will. He was not delivered from death in the sense that He avoided it, but in the sense that He conquered it, that He was victorious over death, that in His own death He trampled down death forever.

This is to say that Jesus’ resurrection and glorification were the Father’s response to His prayer in the Agony. It was in answer to this prayer, “Thy will be done,” that Jesus, “having been perfected, . . . became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him” (Hebrews 5:9). This was God’s will, the will that Jesus prayed would be done. He was thus “made perfect through sufferings” (2:10). It was because Jesus became obedient unto death that “God also has highly exalted Him” (Philippians 2:9). The Paschal victory over death was the Father’s reply to the prayers and supplications offered by the true High Priest in the days of His flesh.

(These Daily Reflections are brief commentaries on the lectionary readings contained in the St. James Daily Devotional Guide. The reflections are penned by Patrick Henry Reardon, editor of the Daily Devotional Guide and a senior editor of Touchstone Mag.)

I find this VERY interesting.

Post Edited (PotOnWheel) : 7/8/2006 9:20:06 AM (GMT-5)