Holy Week: Saturday
“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ (which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’).”
There was only one time Jesus questioned the Father. Jesus was always in perfect line with the will of God, but there is that heartbreaking moment when, on the cross, he echoed those words from Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The idea that God would allow his Son to suffer the torture of crucifixion is beyond me. The humiliation of being nearly naked, the searing pain, the blood and sweat, the spit from drunken soldiers, and the scorn of a jeering mob. Little wonder Jesus looked up to heaven and asked, “Why?”
But it’s in Philippians chapter 2 where we find Christ’s mindset. It says, “In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (verses 5-11).
We are to have that same mindset as Christ. Oh, to humble ourselves and approach life as he did! To die to ourselves and say, “I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). That is having an Easter mindset. And that is why Jesus died.
Oh, that we would live like that!
Joni Eareckson Tada’s 7-Part Holy Week Devotional
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