Did God Forsake Jesus?

Abandonment and Presence in Mark 15

Abstract

A dominant strand of church tradition interprets Jesus’ words from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” to mean that because of the sin Jesus took upon himself, God abandoned Jesus during the crucifixion. Such an interpretation is built on later theological assumptions rather than the context of Mark’s crucifixion narrative. This essay uses the literary context of Mark 15 and Psalm 22 to answer the question, “Is Mark communicating God’s abandonment or absence in his crucifixion narrative or does the story’s connections to Psalm 22 lead to a different conclusion?”