Why Have You Forsaken Me

A message to fathers and sons on Resurrection Sunday

As I write this week’s article for Treign Up, it’s Easter weekend.   I also  am preparing a Resurrection message for a small home church that I lead.   So, I’ve got some writing to do!  

I was working on a message from the story of the men on the road to Emmaus after Jesus’ resurrection from Luke 24, but I was awakened one night to these words from Hebrews 12:

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything than hinders us and the sin that so easily entangles us and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.   Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith WHO FOR THE JOY SET BEFORE HIM endured the cross, despising its shame and now sits on the right hand of throne of God.

It's not a verse normally associated with a resurrection Sunday message, but….it is.   Today, I was meditating on those verses and started reading on from there.

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.   And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,
    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,
    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father? If you are not disciplined—and everyone undergoes discipline—then you are not legitimate, not true sons and daughters at all.  Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live!  They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness.  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.   (Hebrews 12: 4-11)

The Easter story is a father and son story.  Wait.  It is THE Father and Son story.   This Hebrews’ passage is infused with father-son stories:

God (Father) and Jesus (Son)

God (Father) and us (Sons and Daughters)

Solomon (Father) and Rehoboam (Son)

Any father and any son (child).

And the subject is all about DISCIPLINE.   Keep in mind that Hebrews 11 is the great faith chapter of the Bible.  18 men and women who are commended for their faith.   There wasn’t a case among them that didn’t reveal faith as a result of testing.  Remember that when you see “THEREFORE” in the Bible, it’s THERE FOR a reason that connects what was written before it to what is written after it.  So, there is an obvious connection to the idea of faith and discipline.  All of those mentioned in the great “Hall of Faith”  had their faith tried in the fires of chastisement.   The message?  Great faith requires chastisement and that chastisement must come from a LOVING FATHER or am I misinterpreting this text?  Even the ‘word of encouragement’ as quoted from Proverbs 3: 11, 12, is as from a father (Solomon) to a son (Rehoboam).

And to apply this section of faith and discipline (chastisement) to Jesus and his crucifixion is even more astounding when you think about it.  The cross was THE most horrific and gruesome torture technique ever devised by all humanity.  (Leave it to the Romans!) To think that Hebrews 12: 2 says that for the joy set before him, he endured the cross is unimaginable.  Obviously, Jesus wasn’t looking forward to the ordeal ahead, but ahead of that; meaning the joy of seeing HIS father and His father’s children restored in rightful relationship.  THAT was the JOY that got him through the horror of his suffering.   THAT joy enabled him to endure what happened to him:

But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the CHASTISEMENT of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. ((Isaiah 53:5)

Philippians 2: 6-8 says:

Who, (JESUS)  being in very nature God,
    did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
    by taking the very nature of a servant,
    being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
    he humbled himself
    by becoming obedient to death—
        even death on a cross!

The word of issue here is “OBEDIENT”.  Where do you think Jesus learned obedience?   If a FATHER loves a son (according to scriptures) he chastises him.  By the way, we’ve discussed the idea of a father’s role in discipline in other Treign Up articles.  (See “Rebellion vs Defiance, April 2, 2024.)  It should not be missed that Jesus has free will.  I think a case can be made that he wrestled so much with being obedient to the Father’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane that he sweated ‘great drops of blood’ a medical condition that indicates the highest amount of internal conflict.  That’s what ‘obedience unto death’ looks like.

I’m certain that THIS type of obedience and the chastisement that accompanies it only happens when you TRUST THE FATHER’S love and intentions.  Only then can you accept the chastisement necessary to accomplish it.   In a much more trivialized example, Paul often refers to this type of discipline in terms of an athlete and usually a runner preparing for and running the race.  Consequently, it’s appropriate the he uses that metaphor here in Chapter 12:  ‘that we may run the race marked out for us.’

Let me take you back to yet ANOTHER father and son story that predates this one and is CERTAINLY a foreshadowing of what would come in Jewish history.  It’s the story of Abraham and HIS son Isaac from Genesis 22.  My NIV translation Bible uses the header “Abraham TESTED”.  How appropriate to our conversation here!  I’m going to assume you know the story or you can read (reread) it.  Ironically, in Hebrews 11: 17-19,  it says:

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.”  Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.

We know that Abraham was chastised over and over again as the covenant partner of God.  But where in the world did Isaac get the kind of obedience he would need to accept HIS part of this story?

Abraham was 130+

Isaac was a young man.

Isaac had free will.  He could have easily overpowered Abraham.

Isaac allowed his hands and feet to be tied (A willing sacrifice)

Isaac laid down on the altar FACE UP.

We (I) can only assume from scripture that Isaac had himself been chastised by his father during his life.  

Having seen his father’s example and the discipline he endured as a son, Isaac TRUSTS his father even to the point of death.   THAT IS FAITH.   Perhaps Abraham even shared his thoughts on the resurrection power of God with Isaac.  In any event, it was enough.

2000 years later an only SON submits himself to death on an alter (cross) because he had learned obedience from a loving FATHER that he could trust with his life.  So that HE would be 

Wounded for OUR transgressions

Bruised for OUR iniquities

The CHASTISEMENT of OUR peace was upon HIM

And by HIS stripes, WE are healed.

Amen and Hallelujah.

And the most painful and excruciating part of this story was not even something inflicted on Jesus by his tormentors, betrayers, and mockers.   The WORST part was when the collective weight of human sin from the beginning of time and throughout human history was thrust upon his shoulders causing God the FATHER to turn his head.  And for the first time…the very first time….Father and Son were separated.  THAT WAS THE WORST OF IT.

My God.  My God.  Why have you forsaken me?

The Father NEVER left His Son’s side; not for a moment throughout the horror of that ordeal until the substitution for my sin was made on him and the CHASTISEMENT of MY PEACE was upon HIM.  That’s when the lamb without spot or blemish took it all on his shoulders.  Dear God in heaven.  That’s what sin does.  It separates us from God.  Without atonement, we are separated from God forever.  That’s hell.  That is what made Jesus cry out in a loud voice. 

My sins should have caused ME to be separated from God.  Instead, they caused JESUS to be separated from God.  

They beat him.

They spit on him.

They mocked him.

They flogged him.

They set a crown of thorns on his head.

They tore out his beard.

They made him carry his own cross.

They crucified him.

They pierced his side with a spear.

And NONE Of that was worse than being separated from his FATHER.  

I don’t know where else you could point in scripture other than the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness to show that EVEN Jesus was tested and allowed to be chastised by His LOVING FATHER.  But to be consistent with all scripture, we can KNOW that it happened.   The result was an obedient and loving SON who always did the will of the Father.  It WAS the only way.

He endured the cross for the joy set before him.  He sits on the right hand of the throne of God and as he himself said, “IT IS FINISHED”.  What is finished?  The work necessary to bring God’s children back into right relationship with God is done.  Sin is defeated.  Death is destroyed.  That is HIS JOY:  the product of a disciplined obedience from the chastisement of a loving father.

Happy Resurrection Sunday!