MATTHEW 27:45-46 THE COST OF OUR SIN

Written by , Rector of St. Matthew's Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia
 

⁴⁵ From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land. ⁴⁶ About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

No man fully misses that which he has never experienced. One may envy someone who has something he does not possess, or desire that things could be different, but only he who has had something can suffer the loss of it. Even then, at our worst moments we can find some rationalization or ambivalence into which we can try to escape. We talk about clouds with silver linings and half-full glasses. But what if our lost relationship had been perfect? What if we lost that which we knew to be the very source of our existence?

We only have Jesus’ words from the cross as a window into the suffering that was deeper than the physical. The one who had taught his disciples that he and the Father were one (John 17:22), that when they saw Jesus they saw the Father (John 14:7), and that he was never alone for the Father was with him (John 16:32), was now crying out that the Father had forsaken him. That was the costly moment of our redemption. As St. Paul wrote: “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

The relationship between the loving God and his creation is like that between two magnets. Rather than the two poles of the magnet being North and South, the poles of our relational magnets are autonomy and submission. We only have access to the autonomy pole of God. So, when we present our submission pole to him we are attracted and bound together. However, if we try to exercise our autonomy, we are repelled just as like poles of physical magnets push each other away. There is nothing that can hold them together. We call our attempt to be independent of God, sin. So, when Jesus takes on our sin, our autonomy relative to God, our rejection of God and his will in order to have our own way, he becomes the autonomy pole of humankind’s relationship with God. He therefore experiences repulsion from God. Jesus as the Son of God loses that which only he had enjoyed. What an incredible loss he suffered…for you and for me. To make it worse, Jesus did it all the while remaining personally in submission to God.

Lord, how could you have done it? Lord, how could I have put you in that position?

My sins seem so trifling to me and the consequences in this life so minimal, Lord, that I cannot understand how much it cost you to offer me forgiveness. Help me to understand, Lord so that I will take my sins more seriously and know your love for me more fully. May I stop rejecting your gift, O Lover of my soul. Amen.

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