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The deepest questions a mother has ever asked God can be found in scripture and it might surprise you where those questions are reflected. I found these in Jesus’s time on the cross:
“Why didn’t you answer our prayers for healing when we begged and begged You?”
“Why didn’t you intervene when my boy killed himself?”
These cries echo the heart of Jesus’ anguish in His last moments — and they lead us straight into the mystery of God’s silence.
There were many miracles that took place when Jesus hung on the cross but have you ever thought about how they all occurred after He died? Where was God while Jesus was suffering? While it is true that God was silent during those moments, it is not true that He turned His face away from Christ.
I have heard from many pulpits that God turned His face away from Christ on the cross. It’s even in some of our worship songs: “The Father turned His face away”. Did you know that this belief is based on a single misinterpreted verse?
Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do you tolerate the treacherous? Why are you silent while the wicked swallow up those more righteous than themselves? Habakkuk 1:13
Habakkuk 1:13 addresses the truth that God cannot look upon sin and let it stand unpunished. In other words, if God is perfectly just, how can He look upon sin and say it doesn’t matter? Indeed, it matters enough to pay for it with the blood of His Son!
That is the only verse that talks about God “not being able to look upon sin”. And that’s not even its actual meaning.
If you think about it, there are many verses that show God looking directly at sin. He sees all we do, including all of our sins.
The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD is on his heavenly throne. He observes everyone on earth; his eyes examine them. Psalm 11:4
God came face to face with the father of sin, Satan, in the book of Job. It’s amazing to consider how the misconception of God turning His face away from Jesus got started, once you look at the entire biblical context.
So, if God didn’t turn His face away from Christ on the cross, when, why and how does God show up during that time?
In Matthew’s account, in chapter 27, at 9:00am, we find Jesus in deep agony. So far, God has been silent. There is only one outward indication that God is fully engaged in all that is happening. It’s when a miraculous darkness falls on the land at noon.
So, from 9:00 to noon—three long hours—Jesus received no relief, no response. And that’s not even counting all the time He had already spent being tortured before they hung Him on the cross. Then, at noon, He watches as God turns the daylight into darkness. And at 3:00, Jesus gives up His spirit.
45 From noon until three in the afternoon darkness came over all the land. 46 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?”)….50 And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit.
Some might point out the phrase “why have You forsaken me?” as evidence for God turning His face away. Knowing the culture of the time comes in handy to explain why Jesus uttered this exact phrase and in doing so, how He echoed our own heart.
Please come back tomorrow to find our own questions presented in Part 2, Why Did God Wait? Does God’s Silence = Absence?
