"Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani "- My God My God why hast thou forsaken me?.. Mark, chapter 15- Bible Study notes

Open with a reading of Mark 15…For context



What can we glean from that single, desolate cry “ my God my God why hast thou forsaken me “?

There are many opinions which speculate about this very thing. In fact theologians have actually gone into recluse too ponder this very question as there seems to be deep and elusive meaning for us contained in this unusual and pitiful cry….

And at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, "Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" ...

One opinion….

Put to death by his foes, very largely deserted by his friends, was he also deserted by God.???? He may have felt that he was….

Opinion…..

It appears that when Jesus took the sin of all people upon Himself, a separation came between Him and God that had never before existed. So when Jesus cried out, “Why have you forsaken me?” it was because He was experiencing a brokenness in His relationship with God the Father that they had never before experienced.

Opinion…

Was he waiting for deliverance from his suffering? But as he spoke he was delivered and gave up the ghost… We know that Jesus was both man and God… But the physical suffering on the cross was the suffering of the man for all men…. Could the suffering have been so intensely human that it overrode his identity as the Son of God….In my mind this is unlikely the case… But even so at the moment, in the ninth hour the Father released him from his torment in spite of the fact that much of humanity, whom Christ represented and advocated for, didn’t deserve it…I often ponder if the dark hearts of humanity increased the suffering of our Lord Jesus as he took from us our sin that day on the cross…

Consider Psalm 22:

This was written 1000 years before Christ was born…

22 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

8 He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

Mark 15

29 And they that passed by railed on him, wagging their heads, and saying, Ah, thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, 30 save thyself, and come down from the cross. 31 Likewise also the chief priests mocking said among themselves with the scribes, He saved others; himself he cannot save. 32 Let Christ the King of Israel descend now from the cross, that we may see and believe. And they that were crucified with him reviled him.

Psalm 22 begins with the most anguished cry in human history: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” These are the words that Jesus took on His lips at the depth of His suffering on the cross. His suffering was unique at that point as He offered Himself up for the sins of His people. And so, we have tended to see this cry as unique to Jesus. But such an approach to these words is clearly incorrect. Jesus was not inventing unique words to interpret His suffering. Rather, He was quoting Psalm 22:1. These words were first uttered by David, and David was speaking for all of God’s people. We need to reflect on these words and the whole psalm as they relate to Christ and to all His people in order to understand them fully.

The psalm begins with a section dominated by the agonized prayer of David (vv. 1–21). David is expressing in the first place his own experience of feeling abandoned by God. Here is the most intense suffering God’s servant can know—not just that enemies surround him (vv. 7, 12–13) and that his body is in dreadful pain (vv. 14–16), but that he feels that God does not hear him and does not care about his suffering. And this is not just the experience of David. It is the experience of all God’s people in the face of terrible trouble. We wonder how our loving heavenly Father can stand idly by when we are in such distress.

Yet, even in this extreme distress, David never loses faith or falls into complete hopelessness. His anguish leads him to prayer, and the first words of the prayer are “My God.” Even in his suffering and wondering about the ways of God, he does not let go of his knowledge that God is his God. In the midst of his anguish, he articulates that faith. He remembers God’s past faithfulness in Israel’s history: “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” (vv. 4–5). Then, David remembers God’s past care in his own personal life: “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” (vv. 9–10). A recurring spiritual remedy in the Psalms is to fill the mind with memories of God’s past faithfulness to assure us of His present faithfulness.

Paul was content to submit to God’s will no matter what the circumstances.. It was his faith in God that gave him peace in his heart even through he faced imprisonment and eventual death… Like Job he defied the devil and with his unwavering faith and acceptance. He put his trust in God… Paul said :

It was all because of “God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved” (Eph 2:4-5). For Paul, it was “For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10). His adversities strengthened his spirit….



We see David’s hope also in the earnestness of his prayer for present relief. He knows that God can help, and he turns to God as the only one who will help: “But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!” (v. 19). We must never stop praying, even in our deepest distress.

And Jesus was also heard by God and delivered from his suffering in that 9th hour…..

John Calvin in his commentary concluded that a sense of being forsaken by God, far from being unique to Christ or rare for the believer, is a regular and frequent struggle for believers. He wrote, “There is not one of the godly who does not daily experience in himself the same thing. According to the judgment of the flesh, he thinks he is cast off and forsaken by God, while yet he apprehends by faith the grace of God, which is hidden from the eye of sense and reason.” We must not think that living the Christian life is easy or that we will not daily have to bear the cross.

Paul could say from prison, “I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need” (Phil 4:11-12)..

His secret was not in the power of positive thinking. No, Paul’s secret of contentment was the knowledge that he “can do all things through him who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13). He could endure the beatings, the hunger, the cold, and the time in prison, because Christ would strengthen him when he needed it. Near the end of Paul’s life on earth, many of his former friends abandoned him; Like Jesus he stood alone.. He wrote, “Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me and gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia” (2 Tim 4:10), and even more heartbreaking, “At my first defense no one came to stand by me, but all deserted me. May it not be charged against them” (2 Tim 4:16)… th true spirit of Christ when ,in agony he mouthed..”Father forgive them for they know not what they do”….

This psalm 22 is not only the experience of every believer, but it is also a very remarkable and specific prophecy of the sufferings of Jesus. We see the scene of the crucifixion especially clearly in the words, “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” (vv. 16–18). Here we see that indeed this psalm comes to its fullest realization in Jesus.

Jesus knew this psalm 22 and quoted its first words to identify with us in our suffering, since He bore on the cross our agony and suffering. “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death” (Heb. 2:14). Jesus does deliver us by becoming our substitute and the sacrifice for our sins.

In the second part of this psalm, the mood and tone change dramatically. Agonized prayer turns to ardent praise. The psalmist comes to be filled with praise: “In the midst of the congregation I will praise you” (v. 22). He calls on his brothers to join him in praise: “You who fear the LORD, praise him!” (v. 23).

This ardent praise is for the success of the cause of God. The failure that at the beginning of the psalm seemed certain is now swallowed up in victory. The praise rests on the abundant promise: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you… . All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust” (vv. 27, 29). After suffering comes the glory of a worldwide kingdom.

God’s success will not only affect the whole world, but will also span the generations: “Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the LORD to the coming generation” (v. 30). The picture here is not of a brief time of success for the cause of the Lord, but the assurance that the time of suffering will lead to a time of great spreading of the knowledge of God throughout the earth. And surely, since the time of Pentecost, we have seen the fulfilment of this promise. All around the world today, Jesus is known and worshiped. Even while suffering continues in this world, we have seen Christ’s promise realized: “I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Matt. 16:18).

This success is the Lord’s doing, “for kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations” (v. 28). He is the active One who ultimately gives victory to His cause. The Lord achieves His triumph through the instruments He uses. And David sees himself as an instrument especially in his proclaiming the goodness and mercy of his God: “I will tell of your name to my brothers” (v. 22). Jesus also is the speaker in verse 22, as we are told in Hebrews 2:12

The psalmist, indeed, proclaims the name of God, particularly in terms of His saving mercy: “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (v. 24). Such proclamation is vital to the mission of God in the world. As e, “God begets and multiplies his Church only by means of the word.” Those who have experienced God’s mercy must tell others about it. Like John and Peter demonstrated.. The Apostle Peter writes, “you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet 1:1-19),

While God uses instruments to accomplish His purposes, the glory is His alone, for it is He who acts through them and ensures their success. For that reason, this psalm ends with this firm certainty: “He has done it” (v. 31). Our God hears our prayers, fulfills His promises, and fills us with praise. “From him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen” (Rom. 11:36).

As we seek to understand Mark 15 & Psalm 22 so that we can appreciate it and use it, we need to see in it the direction of the history of the church: first suffering and then glory. We also need to see something of a pattern of piety for the church and for the individual Christian. The pattern is this: The real and inescapable problems of life in this fallen world should lead us to prayer. Prayer should lead us to remembering and meditation on the promises of God, both those fulfilled in the past and those that we trust will be fulfilled in the future. Remembering the promises of God will help us to praise Him as we ought. As we praise Him, we can continue to face with grace and faith the problems that come daily into our lives.

In a final thought

Failure or adversity is an opportunity if we recognize it as such…. It brings out our higher self. It makes us see people and curcumstances differently..more broadly, we develop wisdom, it tests our medal.. It makes us vulnerable and we learn more about faith and trust in men as well as in God… We become deeper, richer people as we struggle to pray and find our way…Our priorities change and our appreciation for all things is altered…. And with the blessing from our lord we internalize these things and they all become a part of us and we, in a way also become part of them….So let us embrace each day, each hour with all that it brings to us as a blessing from God..

For God who so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life ( John 3:16)

Only the Son of God can take your brokenness and heartache and turn them into something of wonder and grace..You can trust Him to give you a new beginning, no matter what your circumstances may be…We can saftely and confidently say “ not my will but thine be done….Put our lives in God’s hands…

Is God Willing to Forgive Me?

You may be here this evening secretly wondering if God is willing to forgive you if you might dare to hope that there will be a welcome for you in Jesus Christ. You may be feeling that “He’d never receive someone like me, surely, with my past, with my guilt, with my burdens.” But as Christ looked down on the hateful mob surrounding His cross, as He looked into their faces and saw the malice and mockery in their eyes and heard the contempt in their voices, you remember He pleaded for their forgiveness.

Maybe you are a fool, maybe just a bungler, you maybe weak , full of pride or fear but I dare say that you are not the enemy of Christ and his sacrifice paid for our bungles and foolishness..

He bore the sins of His enemies. Don’t you think if He could look and speak and pray and pour out His life with such love for those who put him to death that, with a contrite heart, you could be forgiven also? That my friends is the “Good News” for us..

Keeping all of these things mentioned here tonight in mind…….


Heavenly Father:

Guide us and empower us today to be an advocate for humanity as we see in Jesus, through your powerful word… Instil in our hearts and minds the steadfastness of Christ, Paul, Peter, David, Job and so many more.. So that our hearts, minds and works will always be pleasing to thee… Bless all those who suffer today from physical health issues, from spiritual depravation and hunger. Extend to them your loving presence giving solace and hope to those in need.. Give us the strength of faith that when we are confronted with temptation we can say , as did our Lord Jesus Christ... “Get thee behind me Satin”…

Bless our bible study this evening with members old and new… reveal your word to us little by little as we put forth the effort and do our best each day to walk in the way of righteousness..

We ask these things in Jesus’ name…

Amen