FRIDAY, 4/3/26
Jesus said very little the day of His crucifixion when He willingly suffered and died for our sins. But the words God the Son chose during those six hours were powerful. Billy Graham once explored seven of those Biblically recorded statements during a 1985 sermon in Hartford, Connecticut:
“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Reference: Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34
What it means: Bystanders thought Jesus was calling for Elijah, the Old Testament prophet, from the cross. But really this comment is a callback to Psalm 22.
In this Psalm, David recognizes the holiness of God, just as Jesus is doing from the cross. “God cannot even look upon evil,” Graham explained in his 1985 sermon. “In that terrible moment … He was lonely, forsaken by His friends, and then a shadow comes for the first time since eternity began between God the Father and God the Son because God cannot look upon sin. In that moment [God] was laying your sins and mine on Christ. And Christ was suffering for us. In that mysterious moment, He was made to be sin for us Who knew no sin.”
Why it matters: During his 33 years on earth, Jesus had never known sin. He never told a lie or had an evil thought. “All of a sudden, all of that filth and dirt from your life and my life descended on Him and none of us will ever understand the mystery of that moment,” Graham said. “No theologian can explain it to my satisfaction at least. It was God’s great love for you that allowed His Son to take that suffering.”