Matthew 27:45-56 (Good Friday)
St. John, Galveston 4/18/25
“The Greatest Irony of All”
Rev. Alan Taylor
+ In Nomine Jesu +
Grace and peace to you, from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
HOW IRONIC THAT DESERTION SHOULD LEAD TO UNBROKEN TRUST.
Jesus died a deserted man. Those who once followed Him had gone their own way. Even the few who followed Him to the cross, looked on from a distance. Simon Peter, who once swore that, “Even though all the others would leave Him and forsake Him, he never would,” in fact, left Him. It was a moment of cowardice for Peter. He spoke those words that perhaps wounded Jesus more than any others. “I don’t know the man!!.” As the prophet Isaiah had written, “(Jesus) was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”
Even the Father left Him. The Father of an infinite majesty, the creator of the heavens and the earth, the Father of all mercy and the God of all comfort and compassion left Him. The thought startles us, that the Father would leave His only-begotten Son on the cross. But He had to, because Jesus had “become sin,” He had become your sin, and my sin, and, as the prophet wrote, “God’s eyes are too pure to behold evil.” And so, Jesus cried out from the cross,“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
So, there He was, nailed to a cross, deserted by everyone, even heaven itself was closed to Him. It all seemed so unnecessary, that is, that this One, this very model of innocence and perfection, should suffer the death that sins demands, but, of course, it was all necessary.
What is so ironic, is that, the Son’s being deserted enables us to trust God completely. The thing is, when Jesus was being deserted, He expressed perfect trust. His cry of “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me,” was in fact a quote from Psalm 22 verse 1. When Jesus hung from the cross He looked around and saw no one in whom He could trust. His friends, His disciples were gone, even His Father had looked way from Him, but in His Father’s Word He put His trust, for “Thy Word is a lamp unto My feet, and light unto My path.” (Ps. 119). “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.” In His dying breath, Jesus trusted in the Word of His Father, even when there seemed to be no cause for trust, no reason for hope. “My God, My God (Psalm 22), why have You forsaken Me?”
It is ironic that Jesus’ plea of desertion, is in fact, a confession of His trust in God. It is ironic too that His being deserted by the Father has reconciled us, it has reconciled you to God. The Father couldn’t look at His Son because of what He had become. Were it not for Jesus’ sacrifice, in your stead, the Father could not look at you, because of what you became. But now, He makes His face to shine upon you. He blesses you and keeps you. He graces you, He looks upon you with His favor and He gives you His peace.
Part of the trust that you enjoy, under the Gospel of Christ, is that you will never have to know the awful loneliness of being forsaken because of your sin. God has not, and will not turn His face from you. In the deepest, darkest moment of your life, when you are tempted to assume that He has looked away from you, or when you are tempted to assume that He doesn’t hear your prayer, your cries for help, remember the cry of Jesus. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” Since Jesus had been deserted by His Father, know most certainly that the Father will never have to desert you. And since Jesus found cause for hope in the word and promise of His Father, even in His darkest moment, you too have been given cause for hope, for God’s Word will never fail you, even as He will never forsake you.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
The peace of God that passes all understanding keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus unto life everlasting. Amen.
+ Soli Deo Gloria +