Good Friday 2.50pm

Friday
2:50 pm

‘My God, my God…’

And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ When some of the bystanders heard it, whey said, ‘This man is calling for Elijah.’ At once one of them ran and got a sponge, filled it with sour wine, put it on a stick and give it to him to drink. But others said, ‘Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.’ (Matthew 27: 46-49).

The agonizing silence that has fallen on them as the skies have darkened in the middle of the day, the sense of foreboding that has enveloped them; it is all shattered as Jesus cries out from the cross. Does he feel that God has abandoned him, or is he saying one of the psalms that he said at home and in the synagogue? Perhaps it is a bit of both. As we read Psalm 22, so much of it speaks to us of what we are witnessing now.

And the clock kept ticking.