As Jesus hung dying on the cross, the words He cried out as we hear in Mark's Gospel, are recorded and preserved for us in Aramaic, the very words that Jesus himself would have used. ‘Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani’ which in English is ‘My God, my God, why have you deserted me?’ or ‘My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?’

Since hearing these words and praying with the Gospel of Mark, Christians throughout the centuries have found themselves both comforted and shocked by them. Comforted because in them we hear Jesus crying out in great suffering and agony, expressing aloud what He is feeling as He endures great suffering. It is perhaps also quite shocking because it seems that in this moment Jesus appears to feel that His Father has abandoned Him.

What this points to though is that Jesus knows what it is like to feel abandoned by God. And so throughout history when people have felt deserted or abandoned in the midst of their suffering and cried out to God looking for hope in the midst of their trial, they find in a mysterious way that Jesus has gone before them and He too has made this cry. In this we discover that Jesus is not aloof from our suffering, He's not removed from what we go through in our humanity. So we understand through this passage that Jesus stands in solidarity with us whenever we've felt deserted or utterly alone.

We need to know and recognise though, that the words Jesus said upon the cross in this moment, is not just the cry of His heart, but also the words of a Psalm, the words of a song from Israel's history, their songbook. The Psalm starts with the words ‘My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?’ but just like if I were to sing the first line of a popular song today, we would know the rest of the song, so too is it for those listening to Jesus’ cry. His followers knew the rest of the song, that in saying these words Jesus was evoking the whole psalm.

And given that the psalm has the character of a prophecy, having been written around a thousand years before Jesus and referring to one who is dying a death something like a crucifixion, it describes a person suffering horrendously, but strangely towards the end of the psalm it becomes a song of praise.

We need to understand that as Jesus hung on the cross dying, He could only get out the first line, but in doing so He called forth the whole psalm ending with words of trust and confidence in His Father. Jesus shows that His feelings of abandonment are not true, that in this moment as He bears the sin of the world upon Himself, the abandonment Jesus is experiencing is not the actual reality, that through the Psalm He prays, Father you have not turned your face from me, I know you are with me and I will praise you in this moment.

To hear Fr Chris’s full 2021 Palm Sunday homily, click here.