My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me? Reflection for Good Friday, April 18, 2025

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? The cry of dereliction. Just what did it mean for Jesus? And what does it mean for us? Readings for today.

My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me?

On the Cross, Jesus quotes the first line from Psalm 22. “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” These words of Jesus, often referred to as the “Cry of Dereliction”, have been the subject of much interpretation and analysis over the centuries. (One of my Dominican brothers, who just received his doctorate in sacred theology wrote on this very topic.)

Given that most of us will never explore the Cry of Dereliction in such depth or insight, what can we gain from these words? They are one of the seven last words of Christ, another motif that has been preached about for some time.

Perhaps for this Good Friday, the words of Psalm 22 offer a good basis for reflection on this Good Friday. The start of the Psalm represents the psalmist in a bad place. The psalmist is abandoned and alone.

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Why so far from my call for help,

from my cries of anguish?

My God, I call by day, but you do not answer;

by night, but I have no relief.

To be sure, things seem bad. Not only are things not going well, but God, who has always been present, loving and supportive, no longer seems to be that way. The psalmist feels abandoned, distant from God, full of anguish. And God is silent.

And yet, the psalmist still has faith. For God is “enthroned as the Holy One”. God has not only been the source of trust for those in the past, but God has been trustworthy. The ancestors cried out and God heard. They escaped from their enemies.

Despite this faith, the way the psalmist looks upon themselves, not only do they feel the absence and silence of God, but at the same time they are conscious of their lowly state.

But I am a worm, not a man,

scorned by men, despised by the people.

All who see me mock me;

they curl their lips and jeer;

they shake their heads at me:

“He relied on the LORD—let him deliver him;

if he loves him, let him rescue him.”

The psalmist feels abandoned in their weakness. They know who they are, especially as compared to God. But they are also surrounded by enemies, and so their abandonment is more complete. Not only do they have enemies, they have enemies who mock precisely because the psalmist trusted in God.

The words of the psalm are echoed in the accounts of the passion. It does not take much imagination, especially in the gospels that are so familiar to us to hear those around Jesus as he hung upon the Cross speak this way about Jesus.

But the end of the psalm moves from the despair at the beginning and the long account of just how bad things are, it moves from here to faith. And this is the pattern we see during this Holy Week, and now into the Easter Triduum.

After the Last Supper, which we commemorated last night, Jesus prays for this cup of suffering to be taken away from him. But only if it be the Father’s will. If it be the Father’s will that Jesus make the total abandonment to that will, Jesus will do it.

Some scholars claim (even early Church theologians) that the Cry of Dereliction came when Jesus felt the enormity of all of the sins of humanity. But what if the explanation is simpler, even though the implications would be profound.

Consider that the ultimate cause of death of crucifixion was suffocation. So it would be logical to assume that Jesus had some difficulty in speaking. What if he was praying Psalm 22 in its entirety, but only had the strength to say the first line?

And so Jesus, who in his human suffering feels not only abandonment, but also feels alone (his followers have abandoned him), but is being jeered by the crowds and mocked for his faith in God the Father.

What if, then, the Cry of Dereliction represents the total self-gift of Jesus for our sins? Rather than being abandoned, Jesus has completed the work of the Father he was sent to do.

For afterwards, Jesus says, “It is finished.” This is not finished as in having come to the end, but rather is finished in the sense of having completed his mission. It is finished. It is fulfilled. I have done all I came to do.

And what was that? To show us how to live. To teach us what it means to treat every human with dignity. To let us know that a relationship with God is not only possible, it is the very thing Jesus wants from each of us.

Jesus total abandonment into the will of the Father is the exact antithesis of our sinfulness. Whereas we rejected God, Jesus totally surrenders into God’s will. Whereas our sin broke the covenant, Jesus perfectly restores it.

And so, imitate Jesus. Abandon yourself to the will of the Father.

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