We have looked at the silence of the tomb, the silence of the delay, the silence of the whisper, and the silence of providence. But there is one dark season in the history of the cosmos that dwarfs them all. There is one moment where the silence of God was not a mystery, not a test, and not a hidden providence. It was a judicial execution.
On the cross, Jesus Christ quotes the first verse of Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?'”
Matthew 27:46 · NKJV
The Ultimate Silence
This is the honest, terrifying starting point of our theology of silence. For all of eternity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit had lived in unbroken, perfect, ecstatic communion. The love between the Father and the Son was the foundational reality of the universe.
But on the cross, as Jesus hung in the darkness that covered the land from the sixth to the ninth hour, something unthinkable happened. The Father turned His face away. The Son became sin (2 Corinthians 5:21). The wrath of God against every lie, every murder, every lust, every pride, every treason of the human race was poured out on the head of the Beloved Son. And the Father was silent.
He did not send a legion of angels. He did not speak a word of comfort. He did not vindicate Him. He let the Son drink the cup of divine abandonment to the very dregs. Jesus experienced the ultimate, agonizing, infinite silence of God. He was forsaken.
The Silence That Bought Our Voice
Why does this matter for our dark seasons? Because it fundamentally changes the nature of the silence we experience.
When a believer in Jesus Christ enters a dark season — when the heavens are brass, when the grief is crushing, when the delay is agonizing, when the silence of God feels like a heavy blanket — we are tempted to interpret that silence as punishment. We think, God is angry with me. God is forsaking me. God has turned His face away because of my sin.
But the cross of Jesus Christ shatters that lie forever.
Because Jesus was forsaken, you will never be forsaken.
Because Jesus experienced the ultimate, judicial silence of the Father, the silence you experience in your dark season is never the silence of wrath.
The wrath was exhausted on Calvary. The justice was satisfied. The silence of God toward you is no longer the silence of a Judge condemning a criminal; it is, at worst, the silence of a Father disciplining a child, or a Husband drawing His Bride closer, or a Gardener pruning a branch so it can bear more fruit. But it is never, ever the silence of abandonment.
Jesus screamed into the void so that when you cry out from the depths, the void will answer you with the voice of a loving Father. Jesus was cast into the outer darkness so that you could be brought into the inner light. Jesus experienced the silence of God so that you could have the ear of God for all eternity.
What This Reveals About God
He is the God who enters the abandonment. There is no human suffering, no psychological torment, no spiritual darkness that God the Son has not personally experienced. He knows what it is to feel utterly abandoned by God. He knows the terror of the silence. When you cry out, “Why have you forsaken me?” you are not praying to a distant, uncomprehending deity. You are praying to a High Priest who has felt the exact same agonizing silence, and who survived it to bring you home.
His love is measured by the cost of the silence. The depth of the Father’s silence on the cross is the exact measurement of His love for you. He was willing to break the fellowship of the Trinity, to crush His own Son, to endure the horror of divine abandonment, rather than let you go. When you are in the dark, and you doubt God’s love, look at the cross. The silence of Friday purchased your Sunday.
Points to Christ
This entire series has been, in a sense, pointing to this moment — every silence we face, from the sealed tomb to the unanswered “how long” to the still small voice to the unnamed providence of Esther, is answered here. Jesus quoted the opening line of Psalm 22 while dying, a psalm that begins in abandonment and ends in vindication and worship among the nations (Psalm 22:27–31) — the Forsaken Son’s cry was not despair without hope, but the first line of a psalm whose ending He alone had the right to claim, and which He now shares with everyone found in Him.
Reflection Questions
Take these slowly, ideally with a journal, and bring them honestly before God rather than merely considering them in the abstract.
- Have you ever interpreted a season of God’s silence as evidence that He was angry with you or punishing you for something? How does the cross reframe that interpretation?
- Jesus’s cry of forsakenness was real, not performed — Scripture does not soften it. Does it change how you bring your own feelings of abandonment to God, knowing His own Son voiced the same cry?
- The passage distinguishes between the silence of wrath (exhausted at the cross) and the silence of a Father’s discipline, nearness, or pruning. Which of these has your current season felt more like, and does that distinction bring any relief?
- Christ is described as a High Priest who has personally experienced the silence you are facing. How does knowing your suffering is not foreign to Him change how you pray through it?
- The depth of the Father’s silence on the cross is described as the exact measure of His love. Where in your life do you need to let the cross, rather than your current circumstances, be the measure of God’s love for you?
- Looking back across this whole series — the tomb, the delay, the whisper, the hidden providence, and now the cross — which of these five pictures of God’s silence speaks most directly to where you are right now, and why?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, You who hung in the darkness, You who screamed into the silence, You who were forsaken so that we could be adopted. When we are in the dark, the enemy tells us that God has left us. But we look at the cross, and we see that You took our abandonment.
Thank You for drinking the cup of divine silence to the dregs. Thank You that because You were forsaken, we are accepted. When we cannot feel Your presence, anchor us to Your promise. When we cannot hear Your voice, anchor us to Your Word.
We are not forsaken. We are Yours. Keep us through the dark, until the dawn breaks and we see Your face in the light.
In Your holy, crucified, and triumphant name, Amen.
Key Scriptures to Meditate On
- Matthew 27:46 — “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
- 2 Corinthians 5:21 — “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.”
- Psalm 22:1 — “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?”
- Hebrews 13:5 — “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”