I shall write about two things that interested me in the
sermon given by my Pastor at church today.
1. My Pastor mentioned in his sermon that when Jesus was
crucified upon the cross, he experienced the abandonment that is due to his
being separated from God that made him cry out “My God, My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me” (Matthew
27:46).
Why did Jesus say these words when he was on the cross at
Calvary? One answer that is given is that God is too pure to look upon evil. Therefore,
it is possible that when Jesus bore the sins of humanity in His body on the
cross that the Father, spiritually, turned away. At that time, the Son may have cried out.
Those who give such an make reference to the prophet Habakuk’s complaint in Habakkuk
1:13 which goes “Your[God] eyes are too
pure to look on evil.”
Another answer is that the feeling of abandonment was due
to Jesus’ experiencing the effect of sin which he took onto himself at the
cross. A commentary from NIV Disciples Study Bible on the Matthew passage states
“Part of the suffering occurred as Jesus felt forsaken by the Father. This
feeling let Jesus identify totally with our feelings. This shows how deeply sin
penetrated the heart of the Godhead, for the sinless Jesus suffered all the
consequences of our sin. Jesus’ sense of desertion did not rise because God was
in any way displeased with Jesus.”
I have read viewpoints from Christian theologians who come
up with the doctrine known as the noetic effect of sin.
According to this doctrine, sin negatively affects the human mind and intellect,
making it difficult for the person to become a believer of the faith. The
Christian apologist William Lane Craig who espoused this view wrote in an
article how he felt most separated from God when he was living most sinfully.
Some website sources that I have visited explained the
utterance as Jesus as simply his fulfilling the prophecy by quoting Psalms 22.
My favoured interpretation would be that God did not
abandon Jesus. I don’t think God would be hampered from being able to look at a
person because of sin. If it were the case, he would not have been able to
interact with many of the Israelites in the past when they committed sins. I
would also prefer to attribute Jesus’ feeling of abandonment as being due to
his humanity instead. I don’t think that the view that feelings of abandonment
by God as necessarily being due to sin conciles easily with the observation of what
many believers may feel at certain point in their lives or when they are
undergoing hardship. I don’t believe that all believers who feel a sense of
abandonment by God are necessarily leading sinful lives. Moreover, even before
Jesus was crucified on the cross, he experienced human emotions such as fear
and doubt when praying at the Garden of Gethsemane when he said “Father, if you
are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” (Luke
29:39-45).
Whilst the utterance by Jesus fulfills the prophecy in
Pslams, I don’t think it is necessary for symbol fulfillment of prophecy to be
devoid of meaning within the circumstances in which it is fulfilled. For
example, Jesus riding on the donkey into Jerusalem fulfills the prophecy in
Zechariah 9:9, but in itself, its significance was to show Jesus as a Messiah
of peace rather than of war. The riding of the donkey in Jewish custom is
symbolic of a king of peace, rather than a king of war as if he should have
been riding on a horse. The prophecy fulfillment of Jesus uttering the
statement at the cross is in the same way connected to its context, from the emotion
of angst he felt when undergoing extreme pain at the cross.
2. The pastor introduced a figure in Lutheran history
that he says models the quality of Christian love – Katharina von Bora,
who was Martin Luther’s wife. She administered and managed the vast holdings of
the monastery, bred and sold cattles, ran a brewery in order to provide for her
family and the steady stream of students who boarded with them and visitors
seeking audience with Luther. Katharina operated a hospital on site,
ministering to the sick alongside other nurses.
This is the first time I have heard the pastor speaking
about Katharina von Bora, and I can’t remember any church sermon speaker
talking about figures of church history as models. I do see in Wikipedia that
Katharina is commemorated in the Calendar of Saints of some Lutheran Churches
in the United States on December 20, which is odd. In my own church though, we
do not celebrate Calendar of Saints. And I didn’t know that Christian sects
apart from the Catholics celebrated a Calendar of Saints. After all, Martin
Luther opposed the Catholics for believing in the merits of saints in addition
to Jesus Christ for the salvation of humanity. But I suppose protestant
denominations may come up with their own Calendar of Saints without holding
onto it the same significance that the Catholics have with theirs.
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