Look at him, and listen to him cry out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” See what is happening here! Don’t look away.
It is precisely where justice is done that those who say they want justice turn away in horror at the cost of it all. The righteous life of Jesus is something that everyone with a conscience must admire.īut where we turn our heads away and avert our eyes is as we see this just man suffering as if he were the unjust man. He spoke the truth to power and he did so without flinching from the cost. He cared about the poor and the dispossessed, yet he did not advocate violence against the state. In fact, many of the political idealists will point to Jesus as one of their own, because they can see that the man yearned for justice and always did what was right. God himself had to become a man and do it. And throughout this seemingly tragic episode of cruel injustice and wanton violence, God was doing justice and making peace.įriends through fear His cause disowning,īut consider the cost of justice! Look at the price of peace! There was only one way for the injustice of mankind to be replaced by the justice of God. His hands and his feet were pierced by nails. Several hundred years before death by crucifixion was invented, David wrote these words of the suffering Savior, “They pierced my hands and my feet.” Surely David could not have known the implications of what he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write. Notice the clarity of the prediction that God gave David to write. When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take care of me.” (Psalm 27:10) When David authored Psalm 22, he was not writing about himself or his own troubles, but was describing the suffering of the promised Savior. After all, David also wrote Psalm 27 where we read, “Do not leave me nor forsake me, O God of my salvation. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Of course, it was, in the mouths of Christians, a rhetorical cry not to be taken literally, for surely God cannot forsake his children. It sounds like the cry of David or perhaps of others who suffered and wondered why. This psalm was written by David and was used by the Old Testament church in her worship. “ Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” Every Jew would recognize those words, for they introduced Psalm 22. In fact, when our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, justice and peace were done perfectly and permanently. It looks like the very worst miscarriage of justice. It stands at the center of all human history. We can neither govern ourselves nor submit to government in such a way as to secure that ever illusive peace and justice that every new generation of idealists think is just around the corner if only their kind of people were to gain power in this world.Īnd yet while ivory tower dreamers pine after what they cannot have or experience in this life, the definitive act of justice that has secured everlasting peace has already taken place. The reason we don’t have justice is the same reason we don’t have peace. It is rather the reflection of the sin deep within our hearts. The reason is that war, crime, rebellion, fighting, and every other form of violence in this world is not a reaction against systemic injustice. While it is true that some kinds of government are better than others, no human government can administer perfect justice.Įven if God were to send angels down from heaven to govern us so that perfect justice could be administered, there would still be no peace on earth. They are corrupt because of their corrupt and sinful nature with which they were born. Corrupt politicians aren’t corrupt because they are politicians. There will never be perfect justice in this world. In time their solutions are seen as useless.
Men offer solutions and gain their loyal followings. Justice is an ideal that is simply unobtainable. People look for justice but cannot find it. Rolf Preus| April 6, 2007Īnd about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “ Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46)
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