This cry represents the most agonizing protest ever uttered on this planet. It burst forth in a moment of unparalleled pain. It is the scream of the damned - for us. - R.C. Sproul

In this strange, unnatural darkness, by the flickering light of the soldiers torches, we step closer to the cross to watch and listen.

Suddenly His face contorts in a display of anguish more terrible than anything we've yet seen. He can restrain Himself no longer. He screams out, "My God, my God!" Why have you forsaken me?

"Nowhere in all the Bible," writes one author, "do we encounter any mystery that so staggers the mind and shocks the Christian consciousness as this tortured cry from the lips of our dying Savior."

The cry is a question - but Jesus is not accusing His Father; nor is He perplexed as to why He's dying. It's a question from David's words in Psalm 22, and on the cross our Lord is fulfilling that messianic Psalm. But Jesus is also doing more than that. He's experiencing on the cross what no one in human history ever has or ever will experience. He's receiving what you and I should be receiving - His Father's full and furious wrath. He's experiencing what every other human being in history deserves and which He alone does not deserve. And He's experiencing it alone.

C.J. Mahaney - Christ Our Mediator