Where Was God When They Killed His Son?

Where Was God When They Killed His Son?

Palm Sunday

Collect: Almighty and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility; Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection.

Gospel: St. Matthew 27:27-50 (BCP, p. 162)

Then the soldiers of the governor took Jesus into the common hall, and gathered unto him the whole band of soldiers. And they stripped him, and put on him a scarlet robe. And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! And they spit upon him, and took the reed, and smote him on the head. And after that they had mocked him, they took the robe off from him, and put his own raiment on him, and led him away to crucify him. And as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name: him they compelled to bear his cross. And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, they gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots. And sitting down they watched him there; and set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS. Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left. And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads, and saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross. Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth. Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani ? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias. And straightway one of them ran, and took a sponge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink. The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

Where was God when those Syrian babies were choking on sarin gas? Jewish people ask, “Where was God in the Holocaust?” There are thousands upon thousands of incidents that provoke the “where was God?” question. If God is all good and all powerful, where is he when evil happens?

But never has that question been more focused than when wicked men killed the only perfect man who ever lived, God’s Son Jesus Christ

The Psalm Fulfilled

On what this day we call Palm Sunday, Jesus rode into Jerusalem. Many of a multitude of pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem for Passover cheered, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!”

But Thursday night of the same week Jesus was arrested, tried by a Jewish court, and convicted of blaspheming God. Friday morning they took him to the Roman governor, Pilate, charged him with insurrection, and demanded he be sentenced to death.  Faced with an angry Jewish mob on the verge of riot, Pilate  pronounced on Jesus the sentence of death.

Prisoners condemned to death were first scourged. These whippings were so brutal that they flayed the skin and could expose muscle and bone. Sometimes men died of the beatings before they were executed.

Then Pilate turned Jesus over to soldiers who had fun before they carried out the sentence. They stripped Jesus of his clothes. For a kingly robe, they put on him a soldier’s red cloak. For a crown, they wove thorny branches into a circle and put it on his head. For a scepter, they put a reed in his right hand. Then they fell  on their knees and shouted, “Hail king of the Jews!” They spit on Jesus and took the reed from his hand and slapped him about the head with it. It was all mockery of Jesus who when asked by Pilate if he were King, said, “Thou sayest.” They did all they could to humiliate and shame him.  

The soldiers then took Jesus a hill called Golgotha, The Place of the Skull, where they laid him on a cross on the ground, and nailed his hands and feet to the beams. Then they lifted up the cross and dropped it into a hole in the ground. Their work done, they sat to watch him die, while the cast lots for his clothes.

People from town and the Jewish leaders who instigated the crucifixion came out to watch the spectacle of men dying. They mocked Jesus by throwing back at him the claims he made. “Look at at the Son of God and King of Israel him hanging naked on that cross to die. If he’s the Son of God surely he would get down off that cross. If he is God’s King surely God would rescue him.”

All these events fulfill the prophetic Psalm (22) we read this morning:

In you our fathers trusted;

they trusted, and you delivered them.

To you they cried and were rescued;

in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by mankind and despised by the people.

All who see me mock me,

they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;

“He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him;

let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

Yet you are he who took me from the womb,

you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.

On you was I cast from my birth,

and from my mother's womb you have been my God.

Be not far from me,

for trouble is near,

and there is none to help.

Many bulls encompass me;

strong bulls of Bashan surround me;

they open wide their mouths at me,

like a ravening and roaring lion.

I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint;

my heart is like wax;

it is melted within my breast;

my strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to my jaw,

you lay me in the dust of death.

For dogs encompass me;

a company of evildoers encircles me;

they have pierced my hands and feet —

I can count all my bones—

they stare and gloat over me;

they divide my garments among them,

and for my clothing they cast lots.

                                       (Psalm 22:4-18 ESV)

Where was God?

Where was God when all that was happening to his Son? In one sense, God was standing by watching. He did not act to deliver his Son from the hands of men as they condemned, beat, humiliated, shamed, scoffed at, and killed his Son.

In another sense God was active. God sent darkness. What was transpiring was the darkest event in human history, and God sent darkness to cover the land. There is no natural explanation for it. A solar eclipse can occur only when there is a new moon. At Passover the moon is full. This was a supernatural darkness caused by God while men who love darkness because their deeds are evil, did all the evil could imagine to do.

What’s the meaning of this darkness? In the Bible, darkness is sometimes a sign of wickedness. Men’s hearts are dark with depravity, and they do dark deeds of wickedness. But darkness is also often a sign of condemnation and judgment. One of the judgments God visited on Egypt was utter darkness. Jesus talked about those who will be cast into “outer darkness” where there is “weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 8:13). St. Jude wrote of those “for whom the gloom of outer darkness has been reserved forever” (Jude 13). St. John wrote in the Revelation about an angel of judgment plunging the throne of the wicked beast into darkness (Rev. 16:10).

But if God was visiting his judgment on the earth, who was God condemning? Surely it was a sign of his righteous displeasure on the people who carried out this most wicked act. But God also sent the darkness of judgment upon his own Son. Out of the darkness we hear him cry out, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Jesus found in Psalm 22 the words to express his experience of abandonment. There a righteous man suffering at the hands of wicked men cries out to God:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

    Why are you so far from saving me,

                      from the words of my groaning?

        O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

    and by night, but I find no rest.

Last week someone asked me if anyone goes to hell. I answered, “Yes, I am afraid they do.” I was then asked what goes on in hell. I replied, “The main thing about hell is that God utterly forsakes those who go there.” In this world, however bleak life may become, no one is outside the the merciful presence of God. But in hell, there is no loving Presence, there is no mercy; people who abandon God and his grace, are abandoned by God forever.

Why did God abandon his Son in the darkness? If he is all good, why did he allow it? If he is all powerful, why didn’t he stop it? So that our sins may be forgiven and we may live in the light of his Presence forever. God let his Son be humiliated that we might be freed from the shame of sin. Jesus died alone that we might live in perfect community with God and his people forever. God turned his back on Jesus that he might turn his face toward us. Jesus was rejected that we might be accepted. Jesus voluntarily suffered God’s wrath that we might know God’s love.

The poet Isaac Watts gives words to express our response to all this:

• 
  

• Alas! and did my Savior bleed

  
  

  • And did my Sov’reign die?
  • Would He devote that sacred head
  • For such a worm as I?

  
  

  • Was it for crimes that I had done
  • He groaned upon the tree?
  • Amazing pity! grace unknown!
  • And love beyond degree!

  
  

  • Well might the sun in darkness hide
  • And shut his glories in,
  • When Christ, the mighty Maker died,
  • For man the creature’s sin.

  
  

  • Thus might I hide my blushing face
  • While His dear cross appears,
  • Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
  • And melt my eyes to tears.

                     
  

  • But drops of grief can ne’er repay
  • The debt of love I owe:
  • Here, Lord, I give myself away,
  • ’Tis all that I can do.