Confession #1 Response

Let's start with a clarification. I do believe that God is ALWAYS with us/me. The question is, do I always walk in that knowledge? Probably not. Even the disciples had a hard time with it, and Jesus was physically with them.

Next, I want to address a change of heart I have had concerning Jesus' final moments on the cross.

"He cried out to His Father, “Eli, Eli, lema Sabachthani?”1 He wanted to know where His Father was in His greatest moment of need. Where was God? We (pastors) tell people that God had to turn his back on Jesus as Jesus took on all the sins of the world. Since God can’t be around sin, He had to turn away."

I have learned since I initially wrote this that "Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani," which is translated as "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" and taken from Psalm 22, was something that the Hebrew culture would have known by heart. As Jesus quotes the first line, moments before his death, Christians have told the story that Jesus was hurt by God but understood that God can't be around sin and had to turn his back on Jesus. I won't go into how problematic and abusive that is here and now, but let's just say I am so glad I don't think that way now.

There is another way to see this moment. According to Alexander John Shaia in his book Heart and Mind, the Four-Gospel Journey for Radical Transformation, this psalm would have been known by the Jewish culture, and according to him, "Any devout Jew in the first century who had prayed all his life would have hoped to be able to pray this psalm at his death." With Matthew being specifically written to the Jewish believers, this was more a signal for them. The psalm itself starts dark but progresses to victory and faith in God by the end. Could Jesus have been signaling to those Jewish people in attendance that he or they will have victory in the end? Shaia also points out that in Matthew 27:46-50, the writer of Matthew quotes it in its original Aramaic and in its translation to ensure it will not be missed.

The only other change would be to use more female pronouns for God. I know now that God has to be more of a "they" since God has both masculine and feminine qualities. I think a disservice has been done to our hearts and minds by not seeing God as feminine as well.

Thanks for reading, let me know what you think in the comments below.