My Christ - The Word of Dereliction

Matthew 27: 45-46

Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, eli, lama sabbachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

A Norwegian astronomer, after witnessing an eclipse, said the following:

"I watched the instantaneous extinction of the light, and saw the glorious scene on which I had been gazing turned into darkness. All the horizon seemed to speak of terror, death and judgment; and overhead sat, not the clean flood of light which a starry night sends down, but there hung over me dark and leaden blackness, which seemed as if it would crush me into the earth.

As I beheld it I thought, how miserable is the soul to whom Christ is eclipsed! The thought was answered by a voice; for a fierce and powerful seabird which had been sweeping around us, apparently infuriated by our intrusion into its domain, poured out a scream of despairing agony in the darkness. It is the picture of an eclipsed God and a lost soul; it is the hour and the power of darkness: the hosts of hell filled it, and the opaque sins of a world thickened it: it is Jesus bearing MY sin in His own body on the tree. It is Jesus taking the place of a lost soul."

{Taken from The Incomparable Christ, by J. Oswald Sanders}

"Man of Sorrows," what a name

For the Son of God who came

Ruined sinners to reclaim!

HALLELUJAH! What a Saviour!

{P. P. Bliss}