(A Spiritual Reflection for Good Friday – April 18, 2025)
Psalm 22, verse by verse, reveals the heart of a man crying out from the darkness. What hurts him most isn’t just the things that come from outside — the insults, the mockery, not even the physical wounds. What cuts the deepest is the feeling of being abandoned. That there is no gaze to meet his. No hand to reach out and touch him. No voice to say, “I’m here.”
A person can be hurt by words, attacked physically — but the deeper wound seems to be when someone simply turns their head. When they don’t see him. When they walk past as if he doesn’t exist. That is the kind of pain that breaks the spirit.
Many people know what the darkness looks like. Those who have gone through war, the loss of loved ones, poverty, chronic illness, long stretches of anxiety, or episodes of depression — they know what it means to feel forgotten by God. They know what it’s like to cry out during the day and hear no answer. To weep at night and find no rest for their soul. The feelings that come with deep suffering can be terrifying. Like being thrown into a pitch-black abyss. That kind of suffering confuses, crushes, and gives birth to a profound sense of abandonment — even by God. These feelings are real and shouldn’t be dismissed. And in those moments, questions naturally arise: Is God angry? Is this suffering a sign that He has rejected me?
Psalm 22 brings the cry of a man from the darkness, but it also reveals a sacred truth: the words of the psalmist were repeated by Jesus as He hung on the cross. He didn’t just taste the darkness — He entered fully into it. For three hours, He endured its weight, and around the ninth hour (about 3:00 p.m.), a cry broke forth from the shadows — a question hurled toward Heaven, one that received no answer before His death: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
In Scripture, darkness is associated with many things: ignorance, fear, temptation, betrayal, evil, death. But most often, it is a visible sign of God’s judgment and displeasure. Symbolically, it speaks of separation from the light — from God Himself. A similar darkness once covered Egypt in the book of Exodus as a sign of God’s judgment. The darkness that fell upon the earth at the moment of Jesus’ crucifixion wasn’t merely a natural event — it was an expression of God’s judgment and sorrow.
And if we ask ourselves, “Did God truly abandon Jesus? Or did Jesus just feel that way?” — we must take Jesus’ words seriously, exactly as they were spoken. Neither Matthew nor Mark suggest that Jesus didn’t mean what He said. These words reveal the depth of His suffering — immersed in deep darkness, completely separated from the Father, bearing the weight of the world’s sin. Christians have believed from the very beginning that Jesus gave His life as a ransom for many, for the forgiveness of sins — and that, for this reason, He had to be completely forsaken by the Father, if only for a moment. It’s hard to fully grasp the weight of that moment, because it was carried by the One who repeatedly said He is “one with the Father.”
God’s judgment is judgment against sin and evil. His displeasure reflects the holiness of His nature. He does not make peace with the darkness into which humanity, by its own choices, has sunk — and keeps sinking. Jesus’ sacrifice reveals the deep longing of God — His longing to reconcile the world to Himself, to bring His lost children home.
So instead of asking, “Has God turned His face away from us?”, perhaps the deeper question is: “What does Jesus’ abandonment reveal about God’s love?” Instead of wondering whether God leaves us in our moments of pain and darkness, let us remember Jesus’ final words on the cross: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”
We could say this: If God turned His face away from Christ, He didn’t do it out of indifference — but out of love for us. In that moment — when He turned away from the Son who bore the sin of the world — He turned His face toward humanity. Jesus was abandoned so that we could be welcomed. He passed through complete darkness so we could walk in the light. Followers of Christ, in His footsteps, entrust their lives into God’s hands. And that is a place of safety. A place where no one is ever forgotten.
The death of Christ is a call. Through it, the door has been opened for us to come to God and give Him our spirit — our life. Jesus endured the deepest abandonment so that we would never have to. God’s gaze never turns away. His presence is not dependent on how we feel. He is present — even when it is darkest.
That is what Good Friday is about. About the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who entered the deepest darkness — not just to experience it, but to lead out those who are in it.