My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me!

My God, My God, Why have you abandoned me! is the key to our understanding of Good Friday and Holy Week. The key is why he said it. Was he simply fulfilling Psalm 22 like an actor repeating his lines? I used to think that, but that view makes the passion a sterile ritual. Was Jesus complaining about his lot? If so, he is fighting back against St. Anselm’s punishing God and being a bit of a cry baby. No, his feelings of despair must be real, because their purpose was to feel what we feel when apart from God by sin and blame. The clue to their reality comes in John’s Gospel, when toward the end he gives his mother, who first told him of his divine origins, unto John’s care, telling her he was dead to her and thus giving up that story, and at the same time giving up his mission to save the world by commissioning John (or Lararus) to care for Mary, not baptize the world. His entire psyche being shattered, he calls out to God in despair, just as we do.