The Son is Not Forsaken by the Father

What follows is what I preached at Holy Mass today. It is my recasting of Sermon LXVIII by St Leo, combined with the latter half of his Sermon LXVII. These sermons present evidence that the early Church did not understand Our Lord's "Eli, eli..." cry to be the lament of a son angrily abandoned by his father, but rather the dual lesson of the weakness of our flesh together with Our Lord's determined will to die for the life of the world. In this way, St Leo's sermon has urged this scribe to look away from the Anselmic view that dominates late-medieval, post-Reformational, and modern day confessional atonement theology.

Representing all the members of His body in Himself, and speaking for those whom He was redeeming in the punishment of the cross, the Lord Jesus Christ uttered that cry which He had once uttered in the Psalm: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from Me, and from the words of My groaning?”

That cry is a lesson, not a complaint. For the Son of God could not have been forsaken by the Father or separated from Him since, in His Person, Christ is both God and man. So it is on behalf of us—the trembling and the weak—that He asks why the flesh that is afraid to suffer has not been heard.

Therefore, when you hear Our Lord say, “My God, My God,” I urge you not to believe that, when Jesus was fastened to the wood of the cross, the almighty God and Father had turned His back on Him. For in Christ’s own person, the natures of God and man are so completely joined that the union cannot be destroyed by punishment or by death.

To be sure, both natures retain their own properties. Yet, in Christ, both are so united that He Who is arrested by the hands of wicked men is the same as He Who is bound by no limits. He Who is pierced with nails is the same as He Whom no wound can affect. He Who underwent death is the same as He Who never ceased to be eternal. So both things are established facts in Christ—both the truth that He suffered humiliation and the truth that He retained His divine majesty. For you must remember that, in Christ Jesus, the Divine power joined itself to human frailty so that God might make what is ours His and, at the same time, make what was His ours. The Son, therefore, was not separated from the Father, nor the Father from the Son. And there was no division within the unchangeable and inseparable Trinity. So, even though the Son alone became man, the Father did not—for this or any reason—separate Himself from the Son any more than Christ’s flesh was separated from His divinity.

So why, then, did Jesus cry out with a loud voice and way, “Why have You forsaken Me”? To notify all men that He wished not to be rescued, not to be defended, but to remain in the hands of cruel men so that He might be the Savior of the world and the Redeemer of all men not by misery but by mercy; and not by the failure of comfort but by His determination to die.

Yet by praying to the Father, Our Lord Jesus shows that this determination is not His alone; that He is not the only one determined to act on our behalf. For the blessed Apostle says that the Father “spared not His own Son, but gave Him up for us all.” And he says, “Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself up for her, that He might sanctify it.” Hence, the giving up of the Lord to His Passion was as much of the Father’s will as it was of His own will. So if the Father did “forsake” His Son, then it was only because the Son also abandoned Himself in a certain sense—but not as if He was fleeing in fear, but as if He was voluntarily withdrawing or hiding His full divinity. For the Crucified restrained His divine might, and refused to use His power, so that He might secretly deceive death and the devil.

For how would He—who had come to destroy death and the author of death by His Passion—how would He have saved sinners if he had resisted His persecutors? The Jews, then, believed Jesus had been forsake by God. For they were able to commit such unrighteous cruelty. Yet they refused to understand the mystery of His wondrous endurance. So they blasphemed and mocked Him saying, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we believe Him.”

But the Savior’s power would not be displayed against the blind rage of the foolish scribes and wicked priests. And the redemption of mankind would not be delayed by obeying the blasphemer’s evil tongues. For if they had truly wanted to recognize the deity in the Son, they would have remembered His countless miracles which confirmed true faith. In fact, they acknowledged as much when they said that He saved others. But those many great miracles, done openly and in public, does nothing to soften the hearts of those who resist the Holy Spirit. And so all of God’s benefits towards them are turned into their destruction. So even if Christ had descended from the cross, they would have remained in their sin.

Therefore the insults of empty exultation were scorned by Our Lord. And the Lord's mercy in restoring the lost and the fallen was not turned from the path of its purpose by insult or mockery. For a unmatched victim was being offered to God for the world's salvation, and the slaying of Christ the true Lamb, predicted through so many, ages, was transferring the sons of promise into the liberty of the Faith. The New Testament also was being ratified, and in the blood of Christ the heirs of the eternal Kingdom were being enrolled. The High Priest was entering the Holy of Holies, and to intercede with God the spotless Priest was passing in through the veil of His flesh. In such a fine manner, a transition was being effected from the prophetic Torah to the apostolic Gospel, from the synagogue to the Church, from many sacrifices to the One Victim. So when the Lord gave up His Spirit, that mystic veil which hung before and shut out the inner part of the Temple and its holy recess was torn, by sudden force, from top to bottom. For Truth Himself was displacing figures, and forerunners were no longer needed in the presence of Him they announced. To this was added a terrible confusion of all the elements, and nature herself withdrew her support from Christ's crucifiers. To be sure, the centurion in charge of the crucifixion, fearful at the sight, said “truly this man was the Son of God.” Yet the wicked hearts of the Jews, which were harder than all tombs and rocks, is not reported to have been pierced by any regret or repentance. So it seems that the Roman soldiers were then readier to recognize the Son of God than the priests of Israel. The Jews, then, were deprived of all the sanctification imparted by these mysteries; and they turned their light into darkness and their “feasts into mourning.”

But let us not follow their lead. Instead, let us prostrate our bodies and our souls, and worship God's Grace. For He has poured out His grace upon all nations. And let us, each day, beseech the merciful Father and the rich Redeemer to give us His aid and enable us to escape all the dangers of this life. For the crafty tempter is present everywhere, and leaves nothing free from his snares. With God's mercy helping us, which is stretched out to us amid all dangers, we must steadfastly faith resist this devil so that, though he never ceases to assail, he may never succeed in carrying the assault. And let all religiously keep and profit by the last few days of our fast. And let no excesses mar the benefits of such self-restraint. For the things which pertain to sobriety and temperance must be the more diligently observed in these final days, so that our brief zeal might teach us a lasting habit. And whether in works of mercy or in strict self-denial, let not one minute pass without being faithful so that, as the years and time glides by, we may increase in good works and not squander our opportunities to do good. For to devout wills and religious souls God's Mercy will be granted, that He may enable us to obtain that which He enabled us to desire, Who liveth and reigneth with our Lord Jesus Christ His Son, and with the Holy Ghost, for ever and ever. Amen.