My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
The Aramaic words spoken by Jesus on the cross, (according to Mark 15:34, where they are his last words).
Some say this was to fulfil the prophecy of Scripture, specifically Psalm 22. The words Jesus spoke open that psalm, although this time in Greek. Verse 15 of the same Psalm says:
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
In
John 19:28 we read:
After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
But the death of Christ as portrayed in Mark appears bleak and despairing, rather than the fulfilment of some Divine Plan. A Christian scholar characterises that Gospel's description of Jesus' last days on earth as a process of abandonment:
From the opening verse, Mark casts Jesus' last days as an ever-widening "circle of abandonment" created by people who plot against Jesus, who fail him, desert him, and ultimately betray him.1
The final abandonment is by
God, and in Mark, Jesus dies utterly alone and
forsaken. The same scholar goes on to say that this is to demonstrate Jesus'
tenacity in keeping faith with his
Father even when it appears God has failed him (not knowing that he is to be
resurrected and will
ascend to Heaven). In this reading of
the Bible, we are ultimately saved by
faith and
hope even in the depths of uttermost
despair.
1. Dr. Rosann Catalano. See http://www.icjs.org/news/vol9/Jesus.html
Homage to the Triple Jewel