s to find
some excuse for passing it by; and, after doing his utmost to expound
it, he must still confess that it is quite beyond him. Yet there is a
great reward in grappling with such difficult passages; for never does
the truth impress us so profoundly as when we are made to feel that all
the length which we are able to go is only into the shallows of the
shore, while beyond our reach lies the great ocean.

Even in Christ's own mind the uppermost thought, when He uttered this
cry, was one of astonishment. In Gethsemane, we are told, "He was sore
amazed." And this is obviously the tone of this utterance also. We
almost detect an accentuation of the "Thou" like that in the word with
which the murdered Caesar fell. All His life Jesus had been accustomed
to find Himself forsaken. The members of His own household early
rejected Him. So did His fellow-townsmen in Nazareth. Ultimately the
nation at large followed the same course. The multitudes that at one
time followed Him wherever He went and hung upon His lips eventually
took offence and went away. At last, in the crisis of His fate, one of
His nearest followers betrayed Him and the rest forsook Him and fled.
But in these disappointments, though He felt them keenly, He had always
had one resource: He was always able, when rejected of men, to turn
away from them and cast Himself with confidence on the breast of God.
Disappointed of human love, He drank the more deeply of the love
divine. He always knew that what He was doing or suffering was in
accord with the will of God; His feelings kept constant time with the
Divine heart; God's thoughts were His thoughts; He could clearly
discern the divine intention leading through all the contradictions of
His career to a sublime result. Therefore He could calmly say, even at
the Last Supper, with reference to the impending desertion of the
Twelve, "Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come, that ye shall be
scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave Me alone; and yet I am
not alone, because the Father is with Me." Now, however, the hour had
come; and was this expectation fulfilled? They were scattered, as He
had predicted, and He was left alone; but was He not alone? was the
Father still with Him? His own words supply the answer: "My God, My
God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

II.

Although the state of mind of our Lord on this occasion was so
different from what we know to have been His habitual mood, yet