The Last Words

of Jesus

Roger Fritts

March 30, 1997

Cedar Lane Unitarian Universalist Church

Bethesda, Maryland

At night in the sky above we can see the bright light of a comet, visible from the earth for the first time in more than 2,000 years. Its beauty is muted by the newspaper and television accounts of how thirty-nine people died of suicide, apparently believing the comet was a sign for them to shed their physical bodies. Springtime, with its flowers and sunlight, can be a time of joy and happiness. However, as we see from the news this week, it can also be a time of depression, sadness and tragedy.

The story of the death of Jesus is a story with great sadness. The books of Mark and Matthew record that the last words Jesus spoke from the cross were “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We will never know if Jesus said these words. Nevertheless, it is easy for me to believe that he did say them. I imagine how I would feel if someone hammered nails into my hands and feet and left me to die. “Why me, God?” I might scream. It is an understandable cry to utter under the circumstances.

I suspect that these last words of Jesus created problems for early Chris tians. About sixty years after the death of Jesus the founders of Christianitywere traveling around the Mediterranean area preaching that Jesus was God. The skeptics in the crowds would respond by asking “If Jesus were God, why did he say ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ as his last words before he died? Did God talk to himself?” And the nonbelievers asked, “How is it possible for the all-powerful creator of the Universe to experience pain?”

It appears that the author of Luke responded to this problem by omitting the questionable words from his gospel. In Luke, Jesus’ last words are “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit”—a much more positive statement. Still later the author of the Gospel of John wrote that Jesus’ last words were “It is finished.” This version does not have Jesus talking to God at all.

If the earliest written accounts of Jesus' death in Mark and Matthew had faded away, life might have been easier for Christian theologians. However, early Christians continued to circulate these accounts. It became necessary to develop an explanation for why, as his last words on the cross, Jesus talked to himself in such a despairing way.

Three hundred and twentyfive years after the birth of Jesus, most leaders of the Christian church settled on an explanation. They agreed to view God as having three parts: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Following this theology, when Jesus said “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?” it was the human, or Son, part of the Trinity that was speaking to the Father part of the Trinity.

Ever since this formation some persons have objected to this Trinitarian understanding of God. People who pose these objections have come to be known as Unitarians. Unitarians have pointed out that the idea of the Trinity is not logical, nor does the word Trinity appear anywhere in the Bible. In Matthew, a gospel writer does quote Jesus as saying “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.” However, Unitarians point out that the best biblical scholars agree that we cannot trace these words back to Jesus. The author of the Gospel added these words many years after Jesus died.

Unitarians have claimed for centuries that Jesus was a human being and not God. This is why he could die speaking words of despair to God.

However, the idea that Jesus died in despair still does not make a good ending to the story of his life. Mark and Matthew describe Jesus as a man of courage and faith. Thus, the last desperate words of Jesus seem inconsistent with the rest of the story.

The writer, Erich Fromm, suggested a solution to this problem. According to Fromm, in the Jewish tradition, writers often used the first sentence of a scriptural passage to refer to an entire passage. Because Jesus was Jewish and his first disciples were Jewish, it is probable that the sentence “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is simply a shorthand way for Mark and Matthew to suggest that Jesus, when he was dying, recited the twenty-second Psalm.

Of course, we do not know if Jesus did recite the twenty-second Psalm, but it is unlikely that he did. However, even if Jesus did not say these words, they have become a part of the Easter story. For that reason I want to look at the twenty-second Psalm this morning.

The Psalm begins with its statement of absolute despair:

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groan ing?

2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.

The poet begins with a cry of desperation. I envision it as the cry of Jesus on the cross, or the cry of a parent with a sick child, or the cry of a person experiencing a broken relationship. It is the voice of human suffering.

3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

4 In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.

5 To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.

In this second section the writer’s mood has changed. I visualize it as my own voice, remembering the trust and the faith that I put in my father when I was a child. It is an attempt to grasp at hope.

6 But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;

8 "Commit your cause to the LORD; let him deliver— let him rescue the one in whom he delights!"

The author expresses the human voice of selfpity that tempts me when I experience suffering and misfortune. I can imagine it as my own voice. When I feel overwhelmed by the demands of life, my despair tempts me to cry “No one understands me, no one cares about me. They make fun of me and ridicule me.”

9 Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.

10 On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help.

Again the poet cries for hope, this time recalling not the father but the mother. I see in the passage the trust and faith I felt as a child. The images of the breast, the lap, and the womb express faith in a mother’s uncondi tional love. These are reassuring memories when I feel lost and abandoned.

12 Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me;

13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast;

15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled;

17 I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me;

18 they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.

This is a picture of a human being in dark despair. Raw fear has replaced the selfpity of the early part of the poem. I can imagine this panic.

•550•I envision the feelings of parents who are estranged from their child.•550

•550•I envision the feelings of a person suffering from a serious illness.•550

•550•I envision the feeling of frustration watching a relative or a good friend suffer from drug abuse.•550

The Easter story is a story about the harsh emotions of panic, fear and pain.

The next section of the twenty-second Psalm is the climax and the turning point of the poem:

19 But you, O LORD, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid!

20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog!

21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!

From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.

The poet again cries for help. However, the last line changes the mood of the poem. Suddenly in the moment of deepest fear the poet says “From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me.” There is no logical transition in the poem. The change of the mood occurs like a flash of lightning with no preparation. At one moment the poet is expressing despair and then suddenly jumps from despair to hope. A miracle has happened. The miracle has not come from the outside, but from within a human person. The poetwas describing, 2500 years ago, in the language of ancient Judaism, an experience that is a universal part of human existence.

•550•Sometimes we overcome despair just when we have fully experienced that despair. •550

•550•Sometimes when we are fully able to express emotional pain, there is a sudden liberation from that pain. •550

•550•Sometimes, when we can talk openly and freely about our fear, we feel a surprising liberation from fear.•550

A woman who is seriously ill is suddenly able to reach a level of accep tance after she is able openly to express her most desperate anxiety.

A parent troubled by his child’s behavior unexpectedly finds peace of mind after he expresses the fears and frustrations.

A man who is angry about a divorce suddenly finds a sense of relief after he expresses the depth of his rage.

In these situations we overcome despair just when we have fully experi enced it. The transition is sudden because the transformation from one mood to the other is not a slow change, it is not a gradual selfpersuasion about feeling better and better; it is a sudden revelation, which comes after life fully immerses us in despair.

The poet fills the remainder of the psalm with hope and confidence about life:

22 I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:

23 You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!

24 For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.

25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.

26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD. May your hearts live forever!

27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.

28 For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.

29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.

30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord,

31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.

Using the images of more than 2,000 years ago, the twenty-second Psalm describes an inner struggle within its writer to come to grips with despair. It is not a description of a smooth, gradual path from despair to hope. It is an uneven process, like climbing a steep hill of sand. The poem starts in some despair, changes to some hope, returns to despair, and then returns to more hope. Eventually the poet arrives at the deepest despair, and only at this point does the poet overcome despair. The writer transforms the mood, and in the remaining lines there is no expression of despair except as a receding memory.

Alcoholics Anonymous created the phrase “hitting bottom.” It refers to the theory that each of us must find our own bottom before we can make a change in our lives. This is what the twenty-second Psalm is saying. Each of us has a different point where we hit bottom. Our personal bottom might be after a serious loss of health or after a divorce, or after a loss of a job. Sometimes it takes a crisis like this before we re-evaluate our lives and our priorities. After a critical event in our lives we may be more likely to appreciate life at its fullest. And it often requires hitting bottom before we reach a level of acceptance for ourselves and others. After touching the depths of fear we can make changes in our lives and we can experience a resurrection, we can experience Easter.

The twenty-second Psalm is an expression of a struggle, a movement, an active process occurring within a person. The writer suggests that when I have not experienced the fullness of my feelings I cannot move beyond them. I may overcome my depressed feelings for a time only to find them coming back. The cure for despair, according to the Hebrew poet, is not positive thinking but openly facing my feelings.

In the books of Mark and Matthew the last words Jesus spoke were “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” However, when the writers of Mark and Matthew recorded the Easter story, I do not think they intended us to think that Jesus died speaking these words of despair. Instead they were trying to tell us a story about a man who fell into despair. This man expressed his feelings of suffering and pain. Through that expression he reached a new peace of mind. He died with an acceptance of whom he was and what he was doing.

I think that the authors of Mark and Matthew wrote this story because they found it helpful. It is a statement of hope. It helped give them courage to face the trials and troubles of their own lives. They wanted to share the story with other people. Today, nearly 2,000 years after they first wrote it down, I pass it on to you for the same reason. May the insights of the ancient poets help you to come to grips with the trials and troubles of your own lives.

Early in the spring, at Easter and Passover, people all over the world gather to celebrate the end of winter and the beginning of spring. Easter is a time to look toward the renewal of the earth. It is also a time to look backward at old stories and old ideas of our culture to discover what we can learn. So it is with us, here and now.

Source:

Fromm, Erich, You Shall Be as Gods, A Radical Interpretation of the Old Testament and Its Tradition, Fawcett Premier Book, New York, 1966, pages 169-74, 181-5.

The translation of the twenty-second Psalm used in this sermon is from the New Revised Standard Version.

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