QUESTION: Christians carry the memory of the one who died on the cross crying why God has forsaken him. What does this memory mean? – Justin P.K.

ANSWER: Jacob Parappally MSFS

Christian faith and its articulations are confusing for those who have not experienced Jesus Christ. Some fundamental faith-affirmations of the followers of Jesus are found not only confusing but also contradictory. One of the most illogical and incomprehensible Christian affirmations is that God suffers. When it is reasonable to believe that God is almighty it is impossible to believe that God can suffer. It was always a problem for the Greek mind as well as for the Eastern thinking to accept the possibility of the passibility of God or the ability of God to suffer. They held the view that God is impassible or God cannot suffer. For this reason, St Paul affirms and confesses, “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians1:22-24). God who dies as a human remains always a stumbling block to those who have not experienced and are not transformed by this God revealed through Jesus Christ.
God who created humans and bestowed on them the gift of freedom knew for certain that God was letting himself be vulnerable. Without freedom humans would not be humans. But with freedom humans can unfold themselves and reach their full potential as humans or destroy themselves, the creation and God himself if God enters into history as one among the humans. Freedom is such a beneficial gift and at the same time it is also a dangerous gift like nuclear power. If it is used properly it can be very beneficial and if it is misused or abused it can destroy not only one who misuses it but also his or her surroundings and even affect God! The cry of Jesus on the cross is the expression of the experience of abandonment not only by Jesus the human but also by God. Abandonment is a terrible experience not only for humans but also for God because it negates communion in which we live, breathe and have our being.
Certainly, Christians carry the memory of the one who died on the cross apparently abandoned by God. The evangelists Mark and Matthew quote Psalm 22:1 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” as the last words of Jesus on the Cross. Towards the end of his life Jesus might have been reciting this psalm as he was experiencing terrible opposition from the Jewish authorities, both religious and secular.It would have been the expression of a human being who found everything he stood for coming to an end and even the disciples who followed him did not understand him and his message. They seemed to have abandoned his God’s kingdom project because they thought of it in terms of establishing a Jewish kingdom after securing liberation from the Roman colonial power. It had not taken place and they knew that the enemies of Jesus were seeking to kill him. So it was natural for Jesus to feel that he was abandoned by everyone including God whom he experienced as his Abba. Therefore, Mark and Matthew express this agony of abandonment in the last cry of Jesus on the Cross. However, according to evangelist Luke, the last words of Jesus on the Cross were, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46). Finally, for the early Church the death of Jesus on the Cross was not the death of a failed Messiah but the triumphant accomplishment of a mission of reconciling the world to God. So the last words of Jesus in the gospel according to John are: “It is accomplished” (John 19). The memory of the Crucified who felt abandoned which every Christian carry is not just a remembering of a tragic event of miscarriage of justice which condemned an innocent man to a cruel death but a conscious re-membering of the event in which every Christian, nay, every human being is involved.

Crucified God and Crucified People

The Crucifixion of Jesus happened in history at a particular time and at a particular place. But it did not happen suddenly. According to the Latin American liberation theologian Jon Sobrino it happened at the end of a process which began when God made that primordial option to be born as human in a sinful world that opposed him. It was not just the murdering of an innocent human being Jesus but it was the murder of God or the crucifixion of God because this Jesus of Nazareth was God. Can God be killed? Certainly! When God entered the world and history or in space and time as a human, God was crucified because as Jesus of Nazareth God stood against everything that opposed humans’ unfolding as humans as intended by God. The ultimate subject of the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth is the Logos or the Second Person of the Trinity. Of course, the early Church experienced Jesus as Lord and God only after his resurrection. But it was the faith of the Church that it was God who died on the Cross as a human. For this reason the Scythian Monks’ expression, “One of the Trinity suffered in the flesh” was later approved as the official Catholic faith in the Second Council of Constantinople (553). The abuse of human freedom can reach demonic heights that God can be crucified as a human. Cross reveals not only a suffering God but also the abyss of the inhumanity humans can reach when they choose to turn against God and other humans misusing their freedom.
Those who manipulate systems and structures made for the welfare of human beings and their society for their own self-interests without knowing that it would lead to their own self-destruction, unleash terror and violence to destroy innocent people or oppress, discriminate and dehumanize them. Every day, the vulnerable people are crucified. All over the world those who stand against the systems of injustice and oppression are eliminated by ruthless powers. Even democratically elected governments abuse the government machinery to silence opposition, eliminate people whom they consider as blocking their corrupt ways of administration and even deprive the poor and the marginalized of their basic necessities to cater to the greed of the rich and the powerful. Every hour thousands of persecuted people, the poor who cannot afford to have a square meal a day, women who are raped, harassed, discriminated, children who are forced to work for their survival, victims of war and violence and many such people make this silent cry, “my God, my God, why has thou abandoned me?”. It is not a cry of frustration. It is not a cry of hopelessness. It is the agonizing cry of those who cannot understand why God whom they have always trusted does not protect them or take care of them. The same was also the experience of Jesus on the Cross. It is also the cry of God who feels abandoned by humans who choose not to follow God’s design for their lives! Every torture and crucifixion of humans is also a crucifixion of God because God suffers when humans suffer.

Re-membering the Crucified

By keeping alive the memory of the Crucified God and Human all Christians and celebrating it sacramentally every day the Catholic Christians proclaim to all humans they are committed to the cause for which Jesus died on the Cross and are willing to suffer the consequences. This memory of the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Jesus is not just recalling to mind the events of Good Friday as narrated in the New Testament but it is a re-membering or letting oneself be a participant in this liberating event initiated and accomplished by God. For this reason, St Paul reminds all who have faith in Jesus Christ of their share in his crucifixion and resurrection: “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:3-5). By the hominization or the incarnation of the Word, every human being is included in Christ because God assumed the entire humanity. Everyone before Christ, everyone after Christ and everyone contemporaneous with Christ is included in him. Therefore, when Jesus was crucified and resurrected everyone was crucified and resurrected. But that would become a reality only when one accepts this truth in freedom and surrenders to Christ and accepts the responsibility to live in Christ and like Christ.
In reality every human is in Christ or everyone is a member of Christ. When one accepts Jesus Christ as the Lord and Saviour of her or his life and surrenders to him, she or he is re-membering with Christ consciously and freely. Therefore to carry the memory of Christ goes beyond mere recalling of the Christ-event but is an entering into an intimate relationship with Christ re-affirming the gift of membership in Christ bestowed on humans by the power of the Holy Spirit for the glory of God the Father. Such a re-membering is dangerous in a world that opposes God and the values of the Kingdom or God’s reign which Jesus lived and preached. It would result in the crucifixion of anyone who is willing to re-member Christ crucified. An easy way to escape is to substitute with the worship of the Cross the true following of the way of the Cross Jesus followed, that is, to stand for the values of the Kingdom and to suffer the terrible consequences of it even to the extent of experiencing abandonment by God and humans. The resurrection of Christ reveals that the Cross is not the end of everything. In the experience of abandonment there is an inexplicable acceptance; on the Cross there is resurrection!