Cross + Culture
The 7 Sayings: Abandonment and Praise
What are we doing here?
This is a time to share and wrestle together. No one expects a quick fix or a ‘sweep it under the rug’ approach to real questions.
Of the 7 Sayings of Jesus from the Cross, only the one we’re focusing on tonight is repeated in the Gospels. It is called the “Cry of Dereliction” – a willful neglect, abandonment, or failure to perform an obligation. It is also a direct quote from Psalm 22. Tonight we will explore our sense of forsakenness—those moments when God feels absent—and wrestle with how people often feel abandoned by God, the Church, or loved ones.
“My God, my God; why have you forsaken me?”
- Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34
Ground Rules
Be honest.
Speak in "I" statements about your own experience, not generalizations about groups of people.
Some of our experiences and opinions may conflict with another's—be aware that everyone has a right to share hurt or hope without our judgments. Listen to understand, not to correct or convince.
Let’s be more about connection than competition. This is not a space to argue who is right but to wrestle with our questions faithfully.
And please, what's shared here stays here—honor each other's vulnerability.
Scripture Reading
Psa. 22: 1-5, 27-31
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.[b]
3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the one Israel praises.[c]
4 In you our ancestors put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried out and were saved; in you they trusted and were not put to shame...
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations will bow down before him,
28 for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations.
29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship; all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30 Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord.
31 They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!
Discussion Questions
The Church's Role
Where has the Church abandoned her calling? We're not looking for an exhaustive list, but in ways that bother you, are painful for you, where has the Church failed?
Have you ever been told not to question God, or that your doubt was a sign of weak faith? How did that affect you?
Reflect in silence: Let's consider now if there are places where you feel abandoned by God. Think about: Where were you? What were you going through? What did it feel like?
Personal Forsakenness
What questions or doubts about God do you carry that you've been afraid to say out loud?
Where are you asking "Where are you, God?" right now—in your own life, in the news, in the world?
Wrestling with the Text
Jesus quotes Psalm 22, which starts with "Why have you forsaken me?" but ends with praise and trust in God.
What does it mean that God himself—in Jesus—cries out feeling forsaken? How does that change (or not change) how you feel about your own sense of God's absence?
Moving Toward Hope
Psalm 22 says, "Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted... and you delivered them."
Have you ever experienced God showing up after a long season of feeling abandoned? What was that like?
Journaling Questions
What would it look like to bring your "Why have you forsaken me?" directly to God—not as a sign of weak faith, but as honest prayer?
Take your reflection—what came to mind—and pray it. Name it honestly.
Challenge: Can you hold both "Why have you forsaken me?" and "Yet you are holy" at the same time? What does that feel like?
Prayer
Jesus, you know what it is to feel forsaken. You cried it from the cross. Pray with us and for us.
Tonight we've named our own forsakenness—the places where you feel absent, where your Church has failed, where we've been afraid to ask our questions out loud.
We don't know how to resolve all of this. But we're learning to pray it, opening our hands instead of clenching our fists. Help us to pray "Why have you forsaken me?" and "Yet you are holy" in the same breath.
Teach us to lament. Teach us to trust. And when we can't hold both at once, let this community hold hope for us until we can hold it again ourselves.
We praise you—not because everything is fine, but always––you are our God, and you hear us even when it doesn't feel like it.
Commissioning
This week, practice praying your forsakenness. Don't clean it up. Don't make it pretty. Just bring it to God—raw, honest, unresolved.
When you feel abandoned, open your hands instead of clenching your fists. Say out loud: "Why have you forsaken me?" And then, even if you don't fully believe it yet, add: "Yet you are holy."
Practice holding both. And if you can't, come back here next week. We'll hold it together.