Sunday message · Jesus’ Most Confounding series
Listen to the message
Message Summary
On the Sunday before Easter, Jared Sells wraps up the series on the most confounding statements of Jesus with Mark 15:33–41. Earlier statements in the series were strange in themselves, but this one is strange because of who says it: from the cross Jesus cries, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” Jesus equated himself with God, so it is startling to hear him speak as though separated from God. Jared defines being abandoned as being broken off from someone or something we cling to.
Jared recalls a day when he was seven or eight. He did something that broke the good-boy image he had carefully built with his grandparents, and afraid he had lost their approval, he ran several blocks and hid in a boat for a couple of hours. Many people know that fear of rejection, whether from distant parents, a relationship that ended after they showed their true selves, or a child’s angry words.
Jared steps back to Mark 14:32–37. In Gethsemane Jesus, deeply grieved, asks Peter, James and John to stay awake while he prays, “not what I will, but what you will,” yet he keeps finding them asleep. Then he is betrayed, arrested and deserted by his closest friends. He still has his Father, until the cross, where he is truly alone.
Why would God leave Jesus? Until then, God had been difficult to approach. The temple’s courts kept priests, Jewish men, women and Gentiles at different distances from God’s presence according to the circumstances of their birth. When Jesus died, the temple curtain was torn in two from top to bottom, a sign that the old way was no longer relevant. Mark then records a Roman centurion, an enemy of Israel, declaring that Jesus was truly the Son of God, and names the women who had followed and cared for Jesus. Jew or Gentile, man or woman, anyone can now come to God through Jesus.
This is why Jesus allowed himself to be abandoned: to open for everyone the same relationship with the Father that he enjoyed. He was abandoned by God “so that we could be adopted by God.” And the story does not end there. Easter, a week away, celebrates the resurrection, when Jesus killed death so we could have life.
Jared closes with questions. How has human rejection shaped the way we see God? The gospel says God is a perfect Father who loves unconditionally, so no one has to perform for him. When Jared walked home that day expecting punishment, he was met instead with a hug and a game of basketball, because that love rested on relationship, not behavior. Are we trying to prove ourselves to God, or rejecting him first by deciding he is irrelevant? And how would life change if we truly believed that we are children of God, loved unconditionally? He invites anyone who has not experienced this restored relationship to give it a try, perhaps by talking with the prayer team or someone they trust, and closes in prayer.