I've been working my way through Peter Rollins' new book, "Insurrection," when I came across a section that intersected with a question raised in my latest "Banned Questions" book, "Banned Questions About Jesus."
The question posed on the book is as follows:
Why did Jesus cry out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" from the cross? Did God really abandon him? If so, doesn't this mean that Jesus wasn't actually God?
I've heard a number of explanations for this outcry of agony near the time of Jesus' death, none of which I've ever found particularly satisfying. One suggests that Jesus actually is referencing Psalm 22, in which the Psalmist first decries God's absence, but then resolves with the assurance of God's presence.
The problem with this argument is that it denies Jesus' humanity. To suggest that, while hanging from a cross and facing imminent death, Jesus was thinking strategically how to present a nod to those who would eventually read this story in the pages of an as-yet-incomplete collection to be known as the Bible. Keep in mind there were no stenographers or CNN cameras at Golgotha.
Another view of this outcry claims that, indeed, Jesus is experiencing the absence of God, though for a reason that justifies sacrificial blood atonement. The idea is that God cannot tolerate sin, and at the moment of Jesus' cry, he is bearing all of the sins of humanity. Therefore God, in that moment, cannot tolerate Jesus and turn's God's back on him.
This scenario always reminds me of the priest, Father Damien Karras, from the film "The Exorcist," who compels the demon possessing young Regan to leave her and enter him, at which point he hurls himself down the alley stairway, plummeting to his death and expelling the demon into the outer darkness.
While this makes for great mythology, it's unreliable theology. First, it suggests that any of God's own creation were born with the capacity to do something the Creator cannot endure. But where's that limit, exactly? Is it a matter of numbers? Did we hit an imaginary "red line" at which point god was fed up? Or was it an issue of severity? Had we, perhaps as a group, finally performed enough really bad sins that God saw us as repulsive?
It seems, if we look all the way back to the creation story involving Adam and Eve that this result should have come as little surprise. So if, indeed God created humanity knowing we would experience this intolerable fall from grace, it seems that both Jesus and we were set up from the start.
It was only once I read Rollins' take on the crucifixion that I found a peace with the story that made sense on a deep level for me. While some find his writing unsettling, there is something very liberating in how he challenges -- or even smashes to splinters -- the limiting boundaries we build around God.
Rollins says that Jesus' cry from the cross was a point at which he experienced "a profoundly personal, painful existential atheism." Consider that by this point Jesus had been betrayed by his family, friends, disciples and all who previously had hailed him as the Messiah. All earthly notions of love, community and hope had abandoned him.
Such a deep experience of God's absence should not be confused with an intellectual argument for atheism on a logical level. This, instead, is a corporeal, visceral and utterly human response to suffering, both physical and emotional, but also spiritual for Jesus. For Rollins, it is only in these moments when all other "religious crutches" we depend on crumble away and we are left with the stark reality of what true, radical loss is like.
The moment, for most, seems too much to bear, which is why we develop the myths and constructs that counteract this fear.
The purpose, then that God as an ever-present supernatural being serves is to witness our lives, to assure us that we never are truly alone. Rollins reminds us of Dietrich Bonhoffer's criticism of the Church's use of various constructs of God, either to falsely comfort people in times of distress, or worse, to scare them into a conversion experience. In Rollins' own words:
God was introduced into the world on our terms in order to resolve a problem rather than expressing a lived reality. The result is a God who simply justifies our beliefs and helps us sleep comfortably at night... this God plays the same meager role as the supernatural beings in third-rate Greek plays.
Acknowledging that we all experience such soul-crushing loss and emptiness as part of life is terrifying for some; and for religion to concede as much and yet remain relevant is a leap most churches choose not to make. After all, the God we promote is always your friend, forever by your side, and is there to ensure your happiness throughout life and beyond.
But if Jesus himself didn't experience God in such a mythological way, why do we expect it to be any different for ourselves, especially if we truly, deeply believe that the Christian experience is one that yearns to follow the path of that same Christ?
Most religious apologists will espouse the uniqueness of their particular faith, but Rollins' apologetic -- if one can say as much about someone who suggests the only church that illuminates is a burning one -- hinges on the idea that, while all religions have their atheistic counterpart, this atheism actually is at the very heart of Christianity.
I'm sure this is enough to make the average Christian's head spin, but the fire to which Rollins refers is not simply a destructive, consuming one, but also a fire of refinement. In burning away the chaff of superficial God constructs and opportunistic religiosity, we finally create the space for ourselves to enter into the true, unmitigated presence of God.
Such presence is uncertain, at times frightening and hardly preaches well from a pulpit or in the pages of a how to Christian manual. But in so much as Jesus' entry into the full presence of God required such refining fires, so does our journey as ones who claim the same path.
Are we willing to truly follow Christ to the cross, sacrificing upon it every emotional and physical safety net we've created for ourselves throughout our lives? Will we lay down all of the false gods we've worshiped, including the ones constructed by our religions, and avail ourselves to the utter open-ended mystery that awaits?
Such is the call of Christ.
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How could Jesus cry, "My God, my God," and not believe God exists? How can he claim God as his own and not know that God is for him?
Jesus is praying - he is speaking to God alone - no one else. And when he prays the first words of Psalm 22, the whole psalm is in his consciousness as a prayer and the Father hears the whole psalm, not just the first words.
So the Father hears:
"Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help," verse 11
"Deliver my life from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs," verse 20.
"I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you," verse 22.
"Revere him, all you descendants of Israel! For he has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help," verse 24.
All of the psalm was communicated and all of the psalm was heard.
The Scripture I was quoting was written by King David, who lived approximately 1000 years before Jesus was born. It was a part of the Scriptures that Jesus read when he lived on earth and is a part of the Jewish Scriptures today.
Concerning the New Testament scriptures, I do not question their authenticity, just as I do not question the authenticity of the history of the Roman empire. There are many old, old copies of the Gospels which survived despite the determination of the conservative Jewish leaders to destroy all evidence of the One (Christ) whom they considered to be a deceiver.
To explain why Jesus believes he's been abandoned and thus cries out in this way, we don't such an elaborate explanation—he's been betrayed by EVERYONE and all hope, love, etc, has abandoned him. The physical trauma of crucifixion, never mind the torment preceding it, is sufficient to so overload his nervous system with shock that there would be no avenue available to his consciousness for an experience of God's presence. This is his tragedy.
Forget all the blood sacrifice crap, what is exquisite here is Jesus' determination to take his trust in God and his covenant of peace to its extremity—an extremity that effectively abandons his interrelatedness with God. Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac to abide by his trust in God; Jesus was willing to do something akin to the opposite: to abide by his trust in God he would risk, by way of agony, sacrificing God's presence from the center of his being.
Now that's availing yourself utter open-ended mystery.
If non-believers want to use Bible verses to support their arguement...they should at least try to be accurate and well studied. You are not.
God's goal in forgiving our sins is to open the door to grace for us - that He can re-establish union with us and once again be an Indwelling Presence and Shepherd.
Paul writes in Romans 6:4, "just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life." "Count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus," Romans 6:11.
Being in Christ is an entirely new way of thinking and being. The old center concept of sinning is replaced by faith in God's power to have us participate in his nature.
Perhaps you should take your own advise and not waste thought on something that existing evidence suggests didn't happen. There are no surviving Roman or Jewish records of Jesus or of his crucifixion. Archeological evidence strongly suggests that Roman's didn't use nails to crucify petty criminals. Josephus never even mentions Jesus' supposed judgement and death. How are we supposed to believe that anyone but his small group of followers considered his undocumented death as even important? It may have happened, or it may not have happened. It almost certainly did not happen as described in the NT. So, if the NT got that wrong, why put stock in what he was supposed to have said? Why waste clean thoughts on dirty data?