Why did Jesus cry out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Around the ninth hour, after three hours of unnatural darkness had covered the land, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). Of all seven statements Jesus made from the cross, this one is the most theologically weighty and the most emotionally jarring, the eternal Son of God crying out that He has been abandoned by His own Father.

Some onlookers, misunderstanding, thought He was calling for Elijah (Matthew 27:47). But Jesus was doing something else entirely: quoting the opening line of Psalm 22, a psalm of David that begins in deep anguish and abandonment but moves, by its end, to confident praise and the declaration that God has not despised or hidden His face from the afflicted, but has heard (Psalm 22:24).

This cry was not theatrical or merely symbolic. Scripture presents it as the honest expression of a genuine experience: at that moment, Jesus, bearing the sin of the world, experienced something of the separation from God that sin produces. Habakkuk had described God as having eyes 'too pure to behold evil' and unable to 'look on iniquity' (Habakkuk 1:13), and on the cross, as Jesus was 'made... to be sin for us, who knew no sin' (2 Corinthians 5:21), He experienced, in some real and mysterious way, the Father's judicial abandonment that sin deserves.

This does not mean the eternal, essential union between the Father and the Son within the Trinity was broken; that union is unbreakable, since Father, Son, and Spirit are eternally one God. Rather, in His human experience as the sin-bearer, Jesus felt the full, crushing weight of relational separation that is the essence of sin's curse, even while remaining fully God.

The choice to quote Psalm 22 is significant beyond its opening line. The psalm describes, with striking precision, details that match the crucifixion: mockers wagging their heads (Psalm 22:7-8, echoed in Matthew 27:39), the piercing of hands and feet (Psalm 22:16), the numbering of bones and the dividing of garments by casting lots (Psalm 22:17-18, fulfilled in John 19:23-24). By crying out the psalm's opening words, Jesus was identifying Himself as the very sufferer the psalm describes, showing His crucifixion to be the fulfillment of specific, centuries-old prophecy.

Importantly, Psalm 22 does not end in despair. It turns decisively toward trust and praise: 'For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard' (Psalm 22:24), and it anticipates a coming vindication and worldwide worship (Psalm 22:27-31). Jesus's cry, understood against this backdrop, was not a cry of despair without hope but the beginning of a psalm that ends in triumphant confidence, confidence He Himself expressed moments later: 'Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit' (Luke 23:46).

This cry reveals what substitutionary atonement actually cost. Isaiah had prophesied that the coming servant would be 'stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted' (Isaiah 53:4), language that matches this moment precisely: it was appropriate for Jesus to experience something of divine judgment, because He was standing in the place of sinners who deserved that judgment themselves. This cry is, in one sense, the clearest evidence in all of Scripture that Jesus's death was not merely martyrdom at human hands but an actual bearing of divine wrath against sin.

Understanding this should deepen, not diminish, our wonder at the gospel. The eternal Son, who had never for one moment known separation from His Father, chose to experience it, however that mystery is finally understood, so that those who trust Him would never have to. Paul captures the trade precisely: He 'was made sin for us... that we might be made the righteousness of God in him' (2 Corinthians 5:21).

For believers who face seasons where God feels distant or prayers seem unanswered, this cry offers unexpected comfort. Jesus Himself experienced the felt absence of God at the deepest possible level, and He did not sin in expressing it honestly to His Father. Bringing raw, honest anguish to God, as the psalms repeatedly model, is not a failure of faith but can be an act of faith, trusting God enough to voice the pain rather than hide it.

Ultimately, this cry assures believers that because Jesus was forsaken in our place, we who trust in Him never will be. Jesus promised, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee' (Hebrews 13:5), a promise made credible precisely because He was forsaken so that we would not have to be. His darkest moment secures our unshakeable hope.