Look Ma, No Hands

“My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” This is the cry from the cross. The traditional interpretation is that God couldn't look on Christ anymore because of the sin of the world that he was carrying. When you think of it for awhile, you realize how ridiculous that explanation is. Since when can God not look on sin? Doesn't he have to look at sin in order to judge it as wrong? Hasn't he been looking at sin for millennia?

 The other view is that God moved away from Christ, such as in “the dark night of the soul”. But no one ever seems to give an explanation as to why. Perhaps God does move away, but not in the negative sense that most people would think of.

 Christ is the perfect model for how we are to live. He modelled for us perfect obedience and self-sacrificing love. Maybe God moved away from him in the same way as a parent moves away from a child learning to ride a bike.

 When teaching a child how to ride a bike, you run along side of them, holding onto the seat, keeping them steady until you sense that they have enough balance to do it on there own. And then you slowly release your grip on the seat, while still running beside, until they are doing it all on their own. Eventually they are riding down the street, all by themselves, without even realizing that you are no longer there.

 Maybe God saw Christ's perfect obedience on the cross and then slowly moved away, in the realization that his modelling of obedience and self-sacrificing love was now coming to completion. And, just as a child suddenly realizes that the parent isn't holding onto the seat anymore, there is a burst of fear and panic.

 Maybe in the closing moments of the cross, God was standing off to the side, slightly out of breath, but with a big smile on his face.

 “It is finished.”