“Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” The words of the King of Kings rang out in agony from Golgotha, the Place of the Skull. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken Me?” This was the cup that caused our Lord such torment. This was the cup that caused our beautiful Saviour to sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane. The cup of God’s holy wrath!
Jesus didn’t fear the bite of a whip, or of being forsaken by his friends, or the brutal jeers and beating from the Roman soldiers. It was not the pain of the five-inch nails or the thought of a spear thrust into His side, oh, He knew what was coming! He knew the prophecies that would be fulfilled!! It was the reality that He would be separated from the Triune God that caused Him such extreme anguish!
As the sun went black from the sixth to the ninth hour and all of creation was hidden in the darkness, God the Father turned His face away from His only Son. “Why God?! Why have you left me?!” Throughout scripture, this was the only time Jesus didn’t call the Great I am, my Father!
Our Saviour was, at that moment, abandoned so that you could be accepted, rejected so that you could be adopted, forsaken so that you could be brought near. Fatherless so that you might call Him Father!! Because Jesus endured that agonizing, lonely time where He no longer had the right to call God, His Father, because He had born the full weight of our Sin upon Himself, we now have the ability to come boldly into the presence of Almighty God and call Him, Father!!
Claire's Prayer 