Now we’ll look at Jesus’ third statement as He hung on the cross. It’s found in John 19:25-27. Jesus’ mother, along with several other women, stood by the cross (verse 25). Let me quote verses 26-27, “So Jesus, seeing His mother there, and the disciple whom He loved standing nearby, said to His mother, Dear woman, see your son! Then He said to the disciple, Look, this is your mother! And from that hour, the disciple took her into his own home.”
To be clear, John, the writer of the Gospel of John is this disciple. He identifies himself as “the one whom Jesus loved”, rather than use his name (see John 13:23; 21:7, 20, 24). In His third statement on the cross Jesus fulfilled the requirement of the Law to honor His father and mother (Exodus 20:12) and make sure her needs would be met by putting her in John’s care.
I should mention that Jesus always called her “woman”, never “mother” (compare John 2:4). This was to emphasize that even though she was the mother of His humanity, she was not the mother of God, as some religions claim. God could have no mother, as the Son of God is pre-existent (John 1:1-5, 14).
And only a mother could begin to understand the anguish Jesus’ mother must have been feeling at this point. There was nothing that could have prepared her for this scene. Think back to the experience of the young girl and her conversation with the angel Gabriel and what followed (Luke 1:26-56). Then consider all the things that had happened since then as Jesus was born and grew to a young man. She watched Him turn water into wine at Cana. She saw Him heal the sick and raise the dead to life again. She traveled with Him and experienced the exciting acceptance of the people as they hailed Him as their Messiah. And, she knew His own brothers had rejected Him (John 7:5) and the religious leaders wanted to kill Him (John 7:25). Now, she was watching Him die.
This brings us to the fourth statement. This is Matthew 27:45-46. “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabach’thani? That is to say, My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me?”
First, let’s deal with the darkness. The best accounting I can make of the date of the crucifixion is April 3, 33 A.D. On this date there would have been a full moon. In other words, the moon would have been the farthest from the sun. A solar eclipse would not have been possible. This darkness from the sixth hour (12 noon) to the ninth hour (3:00 PM) was a supernatural act of God.
And what of its significance? For an explanation of that let’s go to Amos 8:9-10 (written 800 years earlier). Let me quote it for you. “And in that day says the Lord God, I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in broad daylight. And I will turn your religious feasts into mourning and all your songs into weeping. I will make all of you wear sackcloth and you will shave your heads. I will make that time like mourning for an only son and it will be a bitter day.”
Now, how widespread was this darkness? It began at noon, that’s noteworthy. Amos says the “earth” was darkened. Here, “earth” is erets, a word that describes the whole planet! This was not a local phenomenon. Also, “darken” is from chashakh, to be dark or grow dark. In Scripture darkness is used to signify suffering, sin, folly, death and judgment.
Verse 10 describes the utter judgment that will befall Jerusalem for their willful rejection of Messiah. Further, in verse 11 we see this, “The days are coming, declares the Sovereign Lord, that I will send a famine through the land. It will not be a famine of bread, or a thirst for water, but of the hearing of the Words of the Lord.”
This is a spiritual famine that persists in Israel to this day.
Let’s go back to the fourth statement, “My God, My God, why have You abandoned Me.” (Psalms 22:1) When I quoted verse 46 above, notice it says, “Jesus cried with a loud voice”. “Cried” is anabaoa, to lift up the voice or cry out with a loud voice. The verb here is in the imperfect tense indicating continuous, repeated action. In other words, Jesus kept screaming these words over and over again as He hung on the cross! The words “My God, My God” refer to God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.
At this point the other two members of the Godhead, with whom Christ had previously enjoyed unbroken fellowship, had both broken that relationship with Him as He was being judged for the sins of mankind. The Holy Spirit had withdrawn His sustaining ministry while the Father judged our sins in Him. It was our sins that separated Christ from the other two members of the Trinity, even as we are separated from them unless we access by faith the work of Jesus.
This is what Paul says in II Corinthians 5:21. “For He made Christ to be sin for us, Who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God through Him.” Peter describes it in I Peter 2:24 when he says, "He bore our sins in His own body on the tree, so we might die to sin and live for righteousness. By His wounds you have been made whole." This was the unspeakable agony of the cross, when everything that is vile and evil in the world, every sin that had been or ever would be committed, came into direct contact with the innocent and holy Son of God. This was the indescribable pain, so intense and fierce that three hours must have seemed like an eternity.
This is the real suffering of the cross. Am I trying to minimize the physical suffering Christ endured? Of course not! But the substitutionary death of Christ on the cross was His spiritual death and must be recognized for what it was, if we are to have the proper appreciation for what He suffered on our behalf.