Christ's Prayer from the Cross

And yet these are words of prayer. Jesus turns to prayer, to Psalm 22 in his hour of abandonment—the first line of that psalm—“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus prayed from the cross, prayed this Hebrew psalm. By choosing to pray these words out loud—in a brutal shout—Jesus reveals how much he had integrated that Hebrew prayer into his life. It is a prayer in the Hebrew language. What a contrast between Abba (Aramaic) Father when he taught us to pray the “Our Father.”

Now the Son calls the Father, his Father, simply God. Our challenge this Good Friday is to deepen our trust in the Lord to prepare us for moments of doubt or seeming spiritual aridity. It is wonderful material for this Good Friday meditation.

Moreover, Jesus’s prayer is a model for us when we find ourselves in the same situation, as we so often do, when we feel abandoned, lonely, isolated, a lack of love and faithful friendships, yes even the lack of the presence of God, an increasing experience in this digital age.

The phenomenon of spiritual aridity is not uncommon even among those of us who regularly seek him prayerfully with a humble heart. Jesus has not abandoned us. More likely, we have abandoned him. In those situations, it is time to look more closely to Jesus on the cross, to look at his face, to listen to his fourth word from the cross and identify with him who so clearly identified with us. His darkest moment, and ours, are one darkness.

And yet, in that darkest hour, Jesus did not give up discouraged. Nor should we. He was basically telling God: I want to experience Your presence. He did not let his desolation absorb Him in self-pity. He chose instead to continue to submit 19