Hey Hasbeens

I don't want to start a whole movie debate with HB again, but I wondered kinda the same thing while watching. But I wondered it about Mary and his family and followers. Why were they so distraught? They knew his purpose on Earth and yet didn't seem to be happy about what his death was about. As a human, wouldn't that be a good thing?

 

As a Christian I can only answer that it is hard to watch anyone your love suffer, even though you know they are going to a better place.

 

I guess I never caught on to the thought that God actually did withdraw from Jesus. I don't recall that being mentioned or even implied.

 

I was just thinking, you've brought up a different way of looking at this, Shrap. Perhaps God never did leave Jesus. Perhaps Jesus just couldn't 'see' Him or feel Him in that moment. If He did take the sin of the world upon Himself, it would separate God from Him, not the other way around. I'm basing this on the parable of the prodigal son. The father never left -- the son did.

 

I've wondered the same thing, about both Mary and the apostles. Jesus told them over and over that he would rise from the dead, but they either couldn't get past His being crucified and ignored the resurrection part, or they just didn't believe it. If pressed, I would say most of the apostles probably fell into the latter category.

I don't think the apostles really understood what Jesus' purpose on earth was until after He ascended back into heaven. Hard to say what Mary was thinking, though. The gospels don't give her much print space at that point.

 

see if this makes sense shrapnel

Seven Last Sayings of Christ
*
Because of the Physical Rigors of crucifixion, Christ spoke only with great difficulty during His final hours on the cross.* Scripture records only seven brief sayings from the Savior on the cross, but every one of them reveals that Christ remained sovereignly in control, even as He died.* And each of His sayings was rich with significance.*
*
*A Plea for Forgiveness
*A promise of Salvation
*A provision for His Mother
*A Petition To The Father
*A Pleading For Relief
*A Proclamation of Victory
* A Prayer of Consummation
*
A Petition to the Father
*
Christ's fourth saying from the cross is by far the richest with mystery and meaning.* Mathew writes, "Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land.* And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why have You foresaken Me?'"(Mathew 27:45-46).
*
**** It might seem at first glance that Christ was merely reciting the words of Psalm 22:1 ("My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?* Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning?").* But given the fact that all of Psalm 22 is an extended prophecy about the crucifixion, it might be better to see the psalm as a prophetic anticipation of the cry of Jesus' heart as He bore the sins of the world on the cross.* It was no mere recitation.
*
*** Some commentators have gone to great lengths to explain why Jesus would utter such words.* To them, it seems unthinkable that Jesus would actually feel abandoned on the cross--and even more unthinkable to surmise that God in any sense abandoned His beloved Son.* And so they insist that Jesus was merely reciting Scripture, not expressing what He truly felt in His heart.
*
*** But that betrays a serious misunderstanding of what was taking place on the cross.* As Christ hung there, He was bearing the sins of the world.* He was dying as a substitute for others.* To Him was imputed the guilt of their sins, and He was suffering the punishment for those sins on their behalf.* And the very essence of that punishment was the outpouring of God's wrath against sinners.* In some mysterious way during those awful hours on the cross, the Father poured out the full measure of His wrath against sin, and the recipient of that wrath was God's own beloved Son!
*
**** In this lies the true meaning of the cross.* Those who try to explain the atoning work of Christ in any other terms inevitably end up nulifying the truth of Christ's atonement altogether.* Christ was not merely providing an example for us to follow.* He was no mere martyr being sacrificed to the wickedness of the men who crucified Him.* He wasn't merely making a public display so that people would see the awfulness of sin.* He wasn't offering a ransom price to Satan --or any of the other various explanations religious liberals, cultists, and psuedo-Christian religionists have tried to suggest over the years.
*
*** Here's what was happening on the cross:* God was punishing His own Son as if He had committed every wicked deed done by every sinner who would ever believe.* And He did it so that He could forgive and treat those redeemed ones as if they had lived Christ's perfect life of righteousness.
*
*** Scripture teaches this explicitly:* "He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for* us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him" (2 Corinthians 5:21).* "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.* But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed: (Isaiah 53:4-5).* "He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth.* Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him;* He has put Him to grief...[in order to] make His sould an offering for sin: (vv. 9-10).* "Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself" (Daniel 9:26).* "What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin:*He condemned sin in the flesh: (Romans 8:3).* "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us ( for it is written, 'Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree')" (Galatians 3:13).* "Christ also suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh" (1 Peter 3:18).* "He Himself is the propitiation for our sins: (1 John 2:2).
*
*** That word propitiation speaks of an offering made to satisy God.* Christ's death was a satisfaction rendered to God on behalf of those whom He redeemed.* It pleased the Lord to bruise Him" (Isaiah 53:10, emphasis added).* God the Father saw the travail of His Son's soul, and He was satisfied (v.11).* Christ made propitiation by shedding His blood (Romans 3:25; Hebrews 2:17).
*
**** It was God's own wrath against sin, God's own righteousness, and God's own sense of justice that Christ satisfied on the cross.* The shedding of His blood was a sin offering rendered to God.* His death was not merely a satisfaction of public justice, nor was it a ransom paid to Satan.* Neither Satan nor anyone else had any right to claim a ransom from God for sinners.* But when Christ ransomed the elect from sin (1 Timothy 2:6), the ransom price was paid to God.* Christ died in our place and in our stead--and He recieved the very same outpouring of divine wrath in all its fury that we deserved for our sin.* It was a punishment so severe that a mortal man could spend all eternity in the torments of hell, and still he would not have begun to exhaust the divine wrath that was heaped on Christ at the cross.
*
**** This was the true measure of Christ's sufferings on the cross.* The physical pains of crucifixion--dreadful as they were--were nothing compared to the wrath of the Father against Him.* The anticipation of this* was what had caused Him to sweat blood in the garden.* This was why He had looked ahead to the cross with such horror.* We cannot begin to fathom all that was involved in paying the price of our sin.* It's sufficient to understand that all our worst fears about the horrors of hell--and more ---were realized by Him as He received the due penalty of other's wrongdoing.
*
**** And in that awful, sacred hour, it was as if the Father abandoned Him.* Though there was surely no interruption in the Father's love for Him as a Son, God nonetheless turned away from Him and forsook Him as our Substitute.
*
**** The fact that Christ--suffering from exhaustion, blood loss, asphyxia, and all the physical anguish of the cross---nonetheless made this cry "with a loud voice" proves it was no mere recitation of a psalm.* This was the outcry of His soul;* It was the very thing the psalm foretold.*
*
The Murder of Jesus
*by John MacArthur
*
*

 

Hey! Maybe my question wasn't so stupid after all.

JB bringing the high, hard stuff.

 

your question wasn't stupid at all, plenty of people have asked that question.

The book The Murder of Jesus really goes into a lot of detail about the crucifixion of Christ. It's very Good!