God Joins Us In Abandonment - How God Saves Us: Lessons from the Crucifixion

“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far away when I groan for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.” (Psalm 22:1–2, NLT)

“Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast. I was thrust into your arms at my birth. You have been my God from the moment I was born. Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me.” (Psalm 22:9–11, NLT)

“The crowd watched and the leaders scoffed. ‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘let him save himself if he is really God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.’” (Luke 23:35, NLT)

Most of us instinctively avoid places of abandonment. We lower our voices around grief. We hurry past suffering. Even in worship, we are often uncomfortable with silence, especially the heavy silence that follows unanswered prayer. Yet the crucifixion places us directly in that silence. Jesus hangs on the cross, surrounded by misunderstanding, mockery, and absence and he prays.

His cry, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” is not a theological misstep. It is a faithful prayer drawn from Israel’s Scriptures. Jesus does not invent a new prayer for suffering. He prays a prayer that God’s people have prayed for generations. In doing so, he stands fully with all who have ever wondered if God has stepped away and forsaken us.

Jesus’ prayer matters because many of us assume that feeling abandoned by God means something has gone wrong with our faith. We imagine that mature believers only pray confident prayers, hopeful prayers, victorious prayers. But on the cross, Jesus prays an honest prayer. He refuses to sanitize suffering or rush toward resolution.

The psalm Jesus prays, Psalm 22, begins in despair, but it does not remain there. It slowly moves toward trust and hope, even praise. Jesus carries that whole psalm both its raw beginning and its hopeful conclusion in his very body. He embodies the long journey from anguish to trust, even when the destination was not yet visible.

The cross teaches us that God’s saving presence is not limited to moments of clarity or certainty. God is with us in confusion. God is with us in silence. God is with us when prayer feels empty and faith feels thin.

Salvation, then, is not escape from suffering. It is God’s refusal to abandon us within it. Jesus joins us in abandonment so that abandonment no longer has the final word. Even when God feels absent, God is nearer than we know.