Separation from the Father

The Gospels record many details of the events leading up to and including Jesus' crucifixion. The suffering that the Prince of Peace endured in his final hours in the hands of sinful men was beyond anything we can imagine.

Yet our Savior's most outward expression of anguish occurred during two separate, but very related events. First in the Garden, when he went to pray--knowing what he was about to endure, Jesus said, "My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death." (Matthew 26:38 NIV). Scripture records that as Jesus prayed in anguish, he literally sweat blood (Luke 22:44). Then, later that morning after darkness had covered the earth for three hours after Jesus was nailed to the cross, he cried out "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).

The anguish Jesus felt in the Garden was his knowing that for a time, he would be separated from the Father as the sin of the world was to be poured out upon him. The three hours of literal darkness that covered the land was God turning away from his beloved Son as he bore the punishment for our sin. This excruciating separation of the Father and the Son was necessary to complete the salvation of mankind. At the moment of Jesus' death, several miraculous events occurred, including the tearing of the temple curtain which had symbolized God's separation from man (Matthew 27:51).

Jesus paid our sin debt on the cross, but his most agonizing moments were contemplating and then actually experiencing separation from the Father. Our Savior alone knows the absolute joy of being in the continual and everlasting presence of God. He also knows how indescribably terrible it is to be separated from the Father---which is the fate of everyone who rejects him as Savior. He willingly suffered so that we would never have to experience separation from God for eternity.