Why did you abandon me?

The passage Mark 15:33 is used frequently by those that don�t accept our faith in the Holy Trinity. Oh yes, they have good intentions. They want to defend that there is only one God. They are right. But in the fullness of time the Son of God incarnated revealed who is this one God. It�s a question of faith, not of reasoning.

There is an enchanting legend regarding Saint Augustine. He was walking along the seashore meditating how one could understand the Holy Trinity. He observed a little child that had dug a hole in the sand and with a little bucket was carrying seawater filling the hole. Saint Augustine asked what he was doing. The boy answered: "I want to put the whole sea into that hole." "Impossible", cried Saint Augustine and heard the rejoinder: "It�s more impossible understand the Holy Trinity".

One general observation. Tell your friends that present these types of objection that they are doing something that isn�t scientific and not even logic. You can�t take a verse out of its context and merely by one word construct an objection. It�s liking hearing someone say: "You kill me" and calling the other murderer when it�s an expression of surprise because the other one overwhelm with kindness!

Let�s look at the passage with the apparent teaching that Jesus is not God and man. It�s an example in case.

In the first place you have to remember that it�s a quote from Psalm 22. It would be convenient read the Psalm before going on with the commentary. It�s a resume of popular commentaries with some observations from my part.

As a quotation of an OT Ps, it can hardly be taken literally as an expression of real despair or dereliction. Rather, Jesus applies to himself an OT passage that sums up the suffering of the upright individual who turns to his God in the stress of hostile opposition and its ensuing depression. In using the Ps, Jesus does not express the feeling that his life�s work has failed and that God has therefore abandoned him; he identifies himself with a biblical precedent, the persecuted upright man who has trusted in Yahweh, and found in him the source of his consolation and ultimate triumph. He has called Himself frequently the "Son of Man", i. e. at the same time the glorified Son of Man in the vision of Daniel and the suffering servant of God of Isaiah. Because in this especially he was made sin for us; our iniquities had deserved indignation and wrath upon the soul (Rom. 2:8). Psalm 22 as a whole moves from apparent despair of God�s presence to a hope of vindication. Since Mark when quoting the OT normally refers to the larger context of a particular verse, readers of the Gospel are to hear Jesus� words as those of the suffering just one who dies with the hope of vindication.

This is the most common interpretation. It�s the same way when Jesus prayed to the Father. You have only to read His prayer according to John and you will find that He is very conscious being the Son of God. Remember too that He confesses himself before the high priest as the Son of God who will come in His Gloria. He is condemned for making Himself God.

Now there is an other explanation proffered by mystics. They say that persons who have mystical experiences of God sometimes despite feeling the existential nearness of God are guided sometimes into an experience of existential emptiness as if abandoned by God. So they suggest: Even being God Jesus might have had an experience like that.