Words from the Cross // My God My God Why have you forsaken Me // Matthew 27:45-53

Amen. Can we pray together this morning? Father, God, You are Jesus, Messiah. Father, and as we have declared by song here today, Father, that amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like us.

That's every single one of us here in this place today. Father, we are all sinners in need of a Savior, and we are grateful that today we get to rejoice in the fact that because of what You did on the cross for us, God, we can have a relationship with You. And God, I believe, you know, many already know that and they have a relationship, but perhaps in this room, God, there's one that maybe feels like there's no way that God could love me because of some of the things we've done. God, I'm reminded, Lord, You have died to save the whole world. That, Father, there's not enough bad that we can do. God, You have saved us, and You can take away that sin today and redeem them. God, I pray, Lord, that today they would feel loved by You, that all of us would get a fresh glimpse of the cross as we come to just this familiar passage of Scripture and we look and we learn.

God, I pray, Lord, that the cross would not just be a routine or a repetitive story that we read around this time of the year, but God, that we would have fresh eyes to be able to see something new and be able never to get over what You have done for us on the cross. God, we love You. We want You to be glorified here in this place. We invite the Holy Spirit to meet with us here this morning, for it's in Your name we pray, and all God's children said amen and amen. You guys can have a seat here. Well, listen, it is good to see you today. How's the 11 o'clock crowd doing? You guys doing good?

You guys awake? You're alert and you get a little bit of extra sleep within our 830 crowd and you guys are here and we are super, super happy that you have chosen to be with us. I appreciate what Pastor David said earlier. If you are a guest with us today, we appreciate you coming. We recognize that you could be in a lot of different places today and you've chosen to worship with us and we do not take that lightly. We are grateful for that.

Make sure you take one of those new here cards and fill that out and take it our welcome center, which is right outside that door and we'd love to get a gift in your hands, just as our way of saying thank you for being here today. It's always a joy to have guests with us here today. There's one in the room that I did want to make mention of, Pastor Bruce Kellenau for us here and Bruce, I'm not going to have you stand here today, but it is good to see you and Pastor Bruce is one of the pastors down at Trinity Baptist Church down in Jacksonville, Florida and so I got a chance to work with Bruce for many years and if you're kind of disappointed that I'm in ministry here today, you can kind of blame Bruce.

He had a little part in that and 25 is amazing. We've known each other for over 25 years, which is wild and where I went to study down at Trinity, Bruce had a major part in that and so I am grateful. He's doing a wedding up here, so he's joining us for worship and just checking in. Make sure I'm not doing anything wrong up here today probably, but it is good to see.

We are glad that you are here. Before we dive into God's word here today, I do want to make mention of one announcement just before we get into that. We don't talk about this often, so if you're new here today, just kind of joining us, we are in the middle of a building program as a ministry, our church and our school and we are excited that through many years of planning and praying and preparing, we broke ground back in November at our future property. It's about a half mile right down here, but as we've watched dirt getting moved from one side of that place to the other and if you drive by a lot, you're kind of wondering like, what in the world are they doing?

Are they just having fun out there riding back and forth and stuff? And I know that they have a plan and a purpose for what they're doing, but we are excited that this past week was the first time that we actually went vertical with our building and so much of the steel has already been put up on our building, which we're super excited about that and so this fall, we will be opening our educational building out at the property and so with that being said, we had an idea that we wanted our church to be a part of that and be able to leave their mark on the building and so we are gonna have Leave Your Mark Sunday that is gonna take place out at our future property. One day our church will be out there, that's later in phase two. The first phase is an educational building and so what we're gonna be doing is on Sunday, April the 6th, we are inviting the entire church at 5 p.m. to come out to the property. You'll be able to go into the building, just kind of see some of the things that is happening and be able to be on site and then we will allow everybody to kind of mark on the building and just kind of leave your mark there on the steel so we're gonna be writing.

You say, what in the world am I gonna write? Perhaps you write your family's names, maybe your grandkids that are gonna be ministered to for years to come in the building, maybe a prayer or a Bible verse that you are praying over what God wants to do there in our new facility and so we are gonna have that on Sunday, April the 6th. That's in just a few weeks and everybody is invited and I know how it is to have young kids. If you have young kids and you're thinking they are gonna destroy the place and stuff like that, hey, I wanna invite you. I think it'll be good for them to be there and so they can participate in this together so that they can kind of see the provision of God at work there at our property and so you have the address up there if you've never been there. It's about a half mile down the street and you do not wanna miss that. We're excited about all that God is doing. Let me say this, because I always say this anytime we're talking about the building, it has never been about the building and so I don't want you to think like, wow, we're just trying to build the biggest, nicest, whatever kind of facility. It is not about the building.

The building is just an avenue. What we're doing is we're excited about the gospel ministry that is gonna take place within the building and so that is our main focus, our main drive more than anything else and so join us on April the 6th. Well, we are continuing a series that we have entitled Words from the Cross. This series is gonna take us all the way through Easter Sunday, which I do wanna mention to you today. Easter is coming up April the 20th, so do not miss that. Our series will take us all the way there but I do wanna talk to our church for just a moment about Easter. Now, we have three services to choose from and so there will be a traditional sunrise service right outside in our parking lot and so we're excited about that and then there's gonna be an 830 and a 1030 service right here in our auditorium. We added an additional service very intentionally because we want guests to come on Easter and we wanna leverage your influence in the community, in your neighborhood, where you work, your family to invite people, so we wanted to create some extra space for that.

That's why we added an additional service. So I need you to invite somebody. Do not come alone.

Be a bringer. Bring somebody to join you on Easter Sunday and perhaps a simple invitation might change the state of where somebody spends eternity. And so be here on Easter. I do get asked this from time to time with our service times. Is the 7 a.m. sunrise identical in here?

It's not. Different music, different message and so if you wanna come to the sunrise and come in here, you're not gonna get the exact same thing. It will be different.

But the 830 and the 1030 will be here. After both of those service, there is an egg hunt for all the kids. So we're excited about that as well. So invite people. There's some invite cards out in the Welcome Center.

Take a few of those with you on your way out here today and we would love for you to invite somebody to join you. But our series, Words From the Cross is gonna lead us all the way into Easter Sunday. We are looking at the seven statements that Jesus made from the cross.

These are his famous last words, if you would, before he died for us. And on that cross, he mentioned seven different things. And we know in scripture, if you've been around church for any length of time, that from cover to cover, the number seven is so important.

It is the number of completion and the number of perfection. And so for us, we believe that these seven statements that Jesus made on the cross are so important and tell us everything that we need to know about our life. And so we've looked at Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. We looked at what Jesus said to the thief, today, you will be with me in paradise. And then last week, we looked at Jesus and how he spoke to John and specifically said, behold your mother and told Mary, behold thy son. And so we looked at that last week and today we will be looking at the statement that Jesus made here from Matthew chapter number 27. If you have your Bible with us, turn there Matthew 27, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

In Matthew 27, verse 45, it says this, now from the sixth hour, there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour, Jesus cried with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is to say, my God, my God, why has thou forsaken me? Some of them that stood there when they heard that said, this man calleth for Elias, straightway, one of them ran and took a sponge and filled it with vinegar and put it on a reed and gave him to drink, verse 49.

The rest said, let us, or let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him. Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost and behold, when that happened, the veil of the temple was rent and twain from top to bottom and the earth did quake and the rocks rent. And the graves were open with many bodies of the saints which slept arose and came out of the graves after his resurrection and went into the holy city and appeared unto me, unto many.

What a sight that would have been, right? You know, when Jesus died and breathed his last breath, all of these bodies from the tombs resurrected and it says that they went into the street, went into the city and in the community and revealed themselves to many. But what we're gonna look at here is back in verse number 46, this phrase, this cry that Jesus cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Now here in verse number 46, we learned that this was a cry that Jesus cried out while on the cross with a loud voice.

The word cry is very interesting to me because it really can be translated a scream. It carries on the idea that it was a, almost a shrieking, terrifying type of cry that our savior on the cross cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Let me say this up front, that I understand that as we look at the cross, we've been looking at the cross the last several weeks and I understand that for many of us that have been in church for our whole life like I have, when you come to a passage like this about the cross, it kind of becomes just second nature to us, it just becomes routine, like you already know this, you're kind of shutting the Bible, be like, I got this and I understand this, there's nothing else that I can learn or be taught about what is happening here on the cross.

I encourage you for the few moments that we have to lean in and open up your heart for just a moment to what is happening here as Jesus hung on a cross, crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? There's a lot of things happening and I wanna mention two things here from this that apply to you and apply to me about what is happening when Jesus is crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Number one, if you're taking notes is this, Jesus was taking on our punishment on himself.

Jesus was taking our punishment on himself. If you see when all this was happening, it mentions the ninth hour, that is 3 p.m. on a Jewish calendar and so from the sixth hour, which is noon, until the ninth hour, which is 3 p.m., there was darkness over all of the land and it's important that you know as Jesus is crying out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's important to note that the darkness that was over all of the land is extremely important to understanding what is happening here in this moment. You see, Jesus was taking on our punishment on himself and that was shown here with darkness over all of the land.

Now remember, this is the middle of the day. This is the middle of the day and darkness, it wasn't just on the hill that they were on called Golgotha darkness wasn't just in that setting, no, darkness was over the entire world. It says it was over all of the land.

You say, what is significant with that? Well, if you look throughout scripture, especially in the Old Testament, you find that darkness was always a descriptor of what we would call the day of the Lord or what we would call the judgment or what we would call the wrath of God that was coming down and poured out because of the sin of the entire world and one day God's judgment will come down on sin once and for all and anytime in the Old Testament that it's talking about the end and talking about judgment day, here's what we find is that a descriptor of that is always that it's gonna be dark. You can see that in a number of different passages but just a couple of for you is the prophet Isaiah and Isaiah 13, 10, here's what it says, for the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light, the sun shall be darkened in his going forth and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. So Isaiah, he's talking about judgment day, the day of the Lord and he describes it that it's gonna be a very dark day.

The prophet Amos in chapter number eight of his prophetic word to the children of Israel, here's what he said in Amos 8, nine, he said, and it shall come to pass in that day, sayeth the Lord God, that I will cause the sun to go down at noon and I will darken the earth in the clear day. You see, darkness was always one of the main descriptors of judgment day, when God comes to judge the whole world of their sin. And here, when Jesus is on the cross, we see that the world went dark.

You say, say, what is happening here? If the world's going dark here and we know that one day when God comes to judge the world of sin, it's gonna be dark then, what's the significance of it being dark on the day that Jesus died? You see, what you could say about the cross is this, is that on the cross, this is like the judgment day before judgment day. In other words, what is happening here is yes, there's gonna be a final judgment and by the way, yes, every single one of us one day will stand before God and that doesn't have to terrify you, that should make you okay if you know Jesus because we're gonna stand before God being fully accepted by him if you've trusted in Jesus but one day, we will all stand before God and God is going to come and he is gonna forever judge the world for their sin.

That's judgment day, that's the day of the Lord that these Old Testament prophets are talking about but the significance with the world turning dark on the day that Jesus died is so important to us because what was happening is Jesus was taking our punishment on himself. You see, what you could say is this, is that the wrath, the justice and the punishment because of our sin, all of that punishment was coming down on Jesus. Darkness, wrath, judgment, all of God's anger towards sin was literally coming down on Jesus on the cross, what you deserved. You see, the justice of God was coming down on Jesus so it wouldn't come down on you. You see, to understand this, we have to understand that we serve a just God, that we serve a just God and because he is just, he has to deal with sin. He has to punish sin. Think about it this way, we all love justice. I mean, you watch the news and just say somebody committed a crime and you're watching this and they get all scotch-free, you kind of get frustrated and in your heart, you get angry because we feel they deserved punishment because of what they did. I mentioned this on Wednesday but just say perhaps this and Pastor Bailey, just say that perhaps Pastor Bailey was caught for embezzling money here at the church, okay? How many of you believe that could ever happen?

Any of you and stuff? But just say perhaps, nobody raised their hand so you're good, Pastor Bailey, okay? But anytime I can make a sermon illustration about Pastor Bailey, I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna take the liberty to do it but just say it was brought to our attention that Pastor Bailey was embezzling a lot of money and just say that all of our giving, he was just taking that money and just say that all of the money that we have raised for so many years for the building program, he was taking all of that money and he was embezzling it and putting it in, you can use your imagination and that kind of thing of where he would put all this money but just say he was doing that and he was caught red-handed and because of that, we are gonna have to shut our doors because we don't have the money to pay our bills and the building project is gonna stop and we're gonna foreclose and we're gonna give that property to somebody else because of what Pastor Bailey did. That would make us all pretty angry, right?

That would make us all angry because he knows he shouldn't do that. Well, just say that in the midst of that, I pull Pastor Bailey in front of the church and we're here and we say, Pastor Bailey, did you embezzle all of the giving and all of the money that we have given for all of these years and Pastor Bailey in front of the church says, yes, I am guilty of what I'm being accused of. We're all angry, we're frustrated and perhaps in the midst of that, I just say, well, listen guys, I just want you to know this, Pastor Bailey's a really good guy and Pastor Bailey's a nice guy so I just think, hey, all of his good, it outweighs this one bad thing that he has done and so because of that, hey, it's okay, we're just gonna let you slide, you can still stay on staff and the whole deal and we're good and there's no hard feelings and we just let him walk with absolutely no punishment. Would that make, raise your hand if that would make you angry that we let him walk? Anybody in here, okay? Some people really want you to pay for what you did, Pastor Bailey, okay?

But here's the point, here's the point. The reason why we don't want him to walk is because he's guilty and because of that, we believe, it's in the heart of our hearts, we believe that once you're guilty, you should pay for what you did. You should be punished for what you did and anything short of that is called grace.

It's called mercy, not giving somebody what they deserve but we would be upset about that because justice did not come down on the guilty. Well, in order for us to understand what's happening on the cross, we have to understand this, is that we have to understand that we're all guilty. We're all guilty. You see, back in Genesis chapter number three, when sin entered into the world, it says in the New Testament that because of Adam and Eve's sin, now sin has passed upon all men. Raise your hand if you're part of the all men.

That's all of us, okay? Every single one of us, all of mankind, now because of Adam and Eve's sin, we all have sinned and when we sin, here's the problem, it makes us guilty before God and because of your sin, you have to be punished for that sin. Just like Pastor Bailey should be punished for him embezzling the money, right?

By the way, it's not a true story. If you're kind of wondering, like I'm not coming to that church and so, but here's the point, he would need to pay for that, he would need to punish for that. The point is is that in life, because of your sin, we should all pay and we should all be punished for the sin that we have committed.

So you say, what's the significance here? The point is is this, on the cross, when Jesus hung on the cross for you and for me, here's what's happening there. All of the punishment that you deserved, all of the punishment that you deserve for every sin that people know about and even the sins of your life that nobody knows about, all of your punishment because you're guilty was literally Jesus standing on the cross taking every bit of the punishment that we deserved upon himself.

You see, that's what's happening. That's the significance of the cross is that he was taking your punishment. That's why we call this judgment day before the future day.

Before the future judgment day, Jesus took your punishment now so that you wouldn't have to be punished one day when you stand before God. You see, that's the good news of the gospel. That's the good news of what we learn about the cross.

That's the first thing. Jesus was taking our punishment on himself. But the second thing I want you to see is exactly from this statement, these words from the cross, my God, my God, why have thou forsaken me? Is this, number two, Jesus was experiencing our abandonment from the Father. You see, Jesus was experiencing our abandonment from the Father. When you look at this statement, these words of Jesus, he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Literally, you could translate it, God, why have you forgotten me? Now, notice when we use the word why here in scripture, it's not that Jesus did not know the reason why. It wasn't a cry of disbelief or confusion. In fact, this was prophesied back in the book of Psalms when David wrote one of his Psalms, Psalm chapter 20. He actually prophesized that one day our Savior would cry this out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

So it wasn't a cry of disbelief or a cry of confusion or a question, if you would, if you were. It shows us what he was going through for us. And you see that by this cry, my God, my God.

You say, what do you mean? Have you ever thought about that when he says, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? If you think about the suffering that Jesus had experienced, you know, crucifixion was the worst possible way to live. So the Persians, they invented a crucifixion and then the Romans had said, they kind of perfected it. The point of crucifixion was this, to put somebody through the worst pain imaginable without killing them.

So they wanted to drag out the pain as long as possible. And that's what crucifixion does. Crucifixion was for the guilty.

It was a punishment for people that had done wrong. And so up to this point, Jesus had experienced the whipping. He had experienced, I mean, his flesh literally getting ripped away from him and the amount of blood and the shame. He was stripped completely naked there on the cross and the shame that came with that.

And just all of these different things. He had nails in his hands, he had nails in his feet. And as he hung there, he cried out, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Have you ever thought about the phrase, my God, my God? Like, if you think about it, his suffering for us, we think it's the physical part of it, right? Like, he didn't cry out, my hands, my hands.

You ever thought about that? He didn't cry out, my feet, my feet. He didn't cry out, my head, my head. Instead, he cried out, my God, my God. You say, what's the significance? The suffering and the pain that he was experiencing, although, yes, he was 100% God and 100% man.

I understand that. So, of course, the pain was his feet, the pain was his hands, the pain was his side, the pain was his body and his head from the crown of thorns. All of those things, for sure, he felt that pain. But the point is, is that the reason why Jesus on the cross cried out with this shrinking, terrifying scream is because the ultimate pain that he was experiencing, the worst suffering that he was experiencing had nothing to do with his hands, nothing to do with his feet.

It had everything to do with what was happening with his relationship with the Father. You see, that's the biggest thing that should fear you, not just the physical suffering of Judgment Day. The biggest thing you should fear, the most important thing that we should fear about Judgment Day isn't the physical part of that judgment.

It's the relational part about that judgment. You see, we're all gonna stand before God and he's either going to accept you because you've trusted in Jesus as your Savior or he's gonna say the most terrifying thing ever, depart from me, I never knew you. You see, the biggest fear about Judgment Day, it's the abandonment and the separation from the Father. So here on the cross, Jesus, as he's hanging there for us, he is actually experiencing the abandonment that you and I deserve. You see, he is actually being forsaken by the Father.

He was actually being forgotten so that you and I could be forgiven. You say, why would he ever do this? And if you're new to church or you're possibly skeptical about Jesus and why on earth would he ever do this, here's the point. In order for you to understand this, you have to understand the full narrative of scripture. And we talk about that here at Union Grove all the time is that the whole Bible from cover to cover is pointing to one main narrative. Now, yeah, sure, there's a lot of stories in scripture, I get that, but the whole Bible is pointing to one main story and that is this, a Messiah has come to take away the sins of the world and to reconcile the world back to God. That's the point, that's the whole story of scripture.

And so yes, there's stories throughout it, but that is the main narrative of the entire Bible. You see that in Genesis chapter number one, when God created man. Say, why did God create man? Why did God create woman? The only reason and the reason why you were created as well is so that we could have a relationship with him.

Isn't that amazing? That the creator of the world wanted a relationship with you, wanted a relationship with me. And so in Genesis one, Adam and Eve, for a short period of time, they got to enjoy relationship with the Father. They got to walk with God, they got to talk with God, and they had a perfect relationship with God.

But we know that in Genesis chapter number three, that relationship was broken. Not because of anything about God's design that was wrong, but because they sinned. They did the one thing God said don't do. Don't eat of that tree.

What did they do? They went and ate of the tree. And when that happened, the scripture says that sin passed upon every single one of us. So God's original design was to have a relationship with us and now because of sin, you know what happened with your relationship, that original design? It was broken. That communion, that fellowship, that relationship with an almighty God, your creator, the one you were designed to have, that relationship with, it was completely broken. And the worst part about it is, it was broken because of our sin. And so there was nothing that Adam and Eve, there was nothing for us to do to ever fix it on our own.

There's nothing that we can do. You say, can I give enough money? No. Can I do enough good deeds?

No. Can I give to charities? Yeah, you should, but there's not enough that you could ever give. There's not enough good things that you could ever do. There's not enough moral decisions that you could ever make with your life that could ever fix what is broken. That relationship, that fellowship that's been broken. And so what happens is, it's like the song says, God didn't want heaven without us. In other words, God wanted a relationship with you so bad that even though you sinned and you should be punished, what he did was he was willing to send his only begotten son, Jesus Christ, to die on this cross.

Why? So that we could be restored back into a relationship with God. You see, you could say it this way. Jesus experienced separation from the Father. He experienced being forgotten from the Father. He experienced being abandoned by the Father. That's why he's crying out, my God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why have you forsaken me?

Why have you forgotten me? You see, Jesus experienced separation from the Father so that we could experience reconciliation with the Father. With the Father. You see, that's the gospel.

That's the good news. And by the way, you can see that here in verse 51 of our text, very literally, there was a veil. And you say, what's the significance about that? So here in verse 51, when Jesus died, the veil in the temple was rent.

It was literally torn from top to bottom. You say, what's the significance? It has everything to do with your relationship with God. And so in the Old Testament, we know that because of sin, our relationship with God has been broken. And so what God did was he gave instructions to Moses about this thing that we call the tabernacle. And usually, if you start a Bible reading plan and you start in Genesis chapter number one, that's a pretty interesting book.

There's all sorts of fun things happening in Genesis. But by the time you get to Leviticus and you start hearing about the tabernacle, we tend to skip over those parts because it's out there. We don't know what's going on, but it's very significant for you and for your salvation because you say, what's the tabernacle? It was a temporary dwelling place for God.

And so there was different parts in it. There was an outer court of the tabernacle. That's where everybody, all the Jews could go and they could be in the outer court and have sacrifice, whatever. But then there was two intersections. One of those was called the holy place. And then there was a inner spot there that was kind of small. It was called the most holy place, or we could call it the holy of holies.

And here's the point. There was a veil that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the tabernacle. And one time of the year, only one time of the year, the high priest would go in, that's called the day of atonement. He would go in and he would sacrifice there in the holy of holies. He would meet before God and he would kill a lamb, a perfect lamb, and he would sacrifice there upon the mercy seat where the presence of God dwell. He would sacrifice for the sins of the entire nation of Israel.

So think about this for just a moment. This tabernacle was a tent-like structure and it sat in the middle of the nation of Israel. In fact, you can look about this in the Old Testament.

All the tribes, the 12 tribes of Israel circled it around. And it was on this one day of the year, it was a Jewish feast called the day of atonement. Is on this day, everybody knew what this day was, that all of the wrongs that they had committed would be made right.

Isn't that awesome? I mean, everybody would long for the day of atonement because all wrong would be made right. And no doubt on that day, the day of atonement, when the high priest, everybody knew this is the most important day of the whole year because all the wrong is gonna be made right. And so all of these people probably left and they went out of their tent and they watched as the high priest went in to sacrifice for all of the wrong that they had ever done.

All, it would satisfy the wrath of God that they deserved because of their sin. So here, fast forward to the New Testament, Jesus is dying on the cross. It says the veil was torn, was significant. You see, the veil separated the presence of God which rested in the Old Testament upon the mercy seat. It separated the presence of God from all everybody else. And so nobody could ever come into the presence of God. Only the high priest could come into the presence of God. And so here, when Jesus died and he cried out with that terrifying, shrieking voice, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And in that moment, when he breathed his last breath, that veil was torn from top to bottom.

You see what happened? Now, because of what Jesus did on the cross, every single one of us can now come into the presence of God. Every single one of us, because of what Jesus did on the cross, we can now be reconciled. In fact, you see, because of your sin, our relationship with your creator, it's more of a hostile relationship. But now, because of what Jesus did, it's a peaceful relationship with the Father when we trust in him. We can be reconciled to God.

In Ephesians chapter number two, Paul writes about that. He says this, for he, Jesus, is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us. In other words, there was a boundary between you and God. There was a boundary that you could never fix, you could never cross, you could never get through, and you could never overcome. So Jesus hanging up on a cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

You say, what's happening? Jesus was experiencing what it is like to be abandoned by the Father. He was experiencing what it is like to be forgotten by the Father.

Why? So that one day, you and I wouldn't have to be forgotten by the Father. You see, he was forgotten so that you and I could be forgiven. So here on the cross, Jesus, our suffering savior, forsaken so that we could be forgiven. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Can you bow your heads with me?