Why Have You Forsaken Me? Jesus’ Cry Across Time

Jesus:  

Jesus speaks calmly, his voice quiet but weighted with eternal compassion.

“When I cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’, it was not only my voice. It was the voice of every soul who has ever felt abandoned, silenced, or unseen. I carried the weight of that question—not to escape it, but to enter it with you. That cry was not the end of faith—it was its deepest form. The kind that holds on when everything else falls away.

I did not quote Psalm 22 to lament only. I spoke it to reveal the hidden arc—from agony to glory, from the shadow to the dawn. This conversation is not about explaining pain—it is about sanctifying it, making it holy by walking through it in love.

Come. Sit with us. These friends—mystics, poets, prophets, and seekers—have walked through silence and suffering too. And in their questions, you may hear your own.

This is not a place of answers. This is a place of presence.”

(Note: This is an imaginary conversation, a creative exploration of an idea, and not a real speech or event.)

Topic 1: Divine Abandonment or Divine Intimacy?

Setting: A candlelit stone chapel. Arched ceilings echo with silence. Each speaker sits around a circular table made of olive wood. A single crucifix carved from dark cedar hangs above. Rain taps gently against the stained-glass windows as the conversation begins.

Introduction – St. Teresa of Ávila (Moderator)

Teresa gently touches her rosary before speaking.

“Let us begin not with answers, but with wonder. When Christ cried out on the cross, was He abandoned—or was He, in that moment, entering into a union deeper than comfort? Is the feeling of divine absence the veil for divine intimacy? I invite each of you to share what this moment means—not just theologically, but spiritually, personally, mystically.”

❖ First Round of Responses

Jesus
“In that cry, I bore the weight of every human who has ever asked, ‘Where is God?’ It was not a performance—it was the fullness of being human. But my soul was not separated from the Father. Even in that darkness, I was held. I called out not to leave, but to draw humanity into the wound—and beyond it.”

Julian of Norwich
“Oh sweet Jesus, your pain was not distance from God, but the burning of love too deep to bear. I saw in my vision that you did not suffer alone. God was never absent—but suffering so fully with you that even angels turned their faces. Divine intimacy wears the mask of abandonment, but only for love.”

Kahlil Gibran
“The cry is not despair—it is music. A chord struck deep between the soul and eternity. In the seeming abandonment, you sang the song of all who thirst for the unseen. Pain, when it stretches the heart, becomes a vessel for the infinite.”

St. Thérèse of Lisieux
“In my own darkness, I too felt forsaken. I could not feel God’s presence in my final years, but I offered it in love. Jesus, your cry taught me that even feeling far from God can be the highest gift, if we offer it. That is intimacy without sensation, love without consolation.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“You were not merely forsaken, Lord—you became the forsakenness of the world. God in you went to the outermost edge of suffering to find us. This was not divine rejection, but divine identification. ‘Only a suffering God can help,’ I once wrote. I believe it more each day.”

Teresa of Ávila – Follow-Up

“You speak of a union that grows underneath despair. But how does the soul recognize this intimacy when it feels nothing but absence? What can we offer those who stand in the shadow of God’s silence?”

❖ Second Round of Responses

Kahlil Gibran
“Tell them not to fear the silence. The tree stands silent as it bears fruit. The moon, too, is most full when most still. God whispers in the absence—if we listen with the ache, not the ear.”

St. Thérèse
“Let them offer their dryness as a gift. I did. I told God I would love Him even if He never let me feel His love again. That’s the kind of offering that turns absence into union.”

Jesus
“Blessed are those who believe and do not see. I descended into your emptiness not to leave you there, but to carry you through. Your cry becomes my cry—and my resurrection becomes your dawn.”

Julian
“The soul must wait. But not idly—lovingly. The darkness is not punishment. It is pregnancy. The soul expands. And one day it will feel the warmth again and know—He never left.”

Bonhoeffer
“Tell them this: when you feel most alone, look to the cross. Not to explain the pain away, but to know you’re not alone in it. Faith is not always light. Sometimes it is choosing to stand in the dark and say ‘yes’ anyway.”

Teresa of Ávila – Final Question

“One last mystery: If God never truly abandoned the Son, then why did the Son say He was forsaken? Is it possible that divine intimacy is so close, it must break the heart to be received?”

❖ Final Round of Responses

St. Thérèse
“Yes. Love so great must wound to enter. When God’s love enters entirely, the soul may feel torn. But that tearing is how we’re opened to eternity.”

Julian
“And still, all shall be well. Not because the pain vanishes, but because it reveals what can never be lost—God’s unbreakable love.”

Jesus
“My words were not a rejection of the Father, but the voice of humanity’s pain lifted to heaven. In voicing it, I baptized it. And in the silence that followed, the greatest intimacy was born: the world was being saved.”

Kahlil Gibran
“Perhaps God hides not to punish, but to be sought. The seeking becomes the sacred thread between the cry and the embrace.”

Bonhoeffer
“Your forsakenness became our prayer. In it, we found not the silence of a distant God—but the sound of God breathing beside us in the rubble.”

Closing Thoughts – Teresa of Ávila

“This has not been a conversation—it has been a communion. May all who cry out into silence know they are not alone. Christ has already made a home in the cry, and turned it into a path toward God.”

Topic 2: The Cry of Humanity — Bearing the Silence of the World

Setting: A quiet railway station at night—symbolic of exile, loss, and hope. The panel sits on an old wooden bench beneath a flickering lantern. Faint echoes of trains lost to history hum like ghosts in the distance. On the wall behind them, graffiti reads: “God is not silent. We just stopped listening.”

Participants:

• Jesus
• Simone Weil – Philosopher and mystic of affliction
• Elie Wiesel – Holocaust survivor and witness
• Mother Teresa – Saint of the slums, who knew spiritual silence
• Fyodor Dostoevsky – Author of The Brothers Karamazov

Moderator: Henri Nouwen

Introduction – Henri Nouwen (Moderator)

Henri folds his hands over his lap, gentle yet burdened.

“When Jesus cried, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’—was He crying only for Himself? Or was He crying the cry of all humanity? The grief of the abandoned child, the prisoner, the mother in famine? What does it mean to carry not just your own silence from God, but the silence of millions? Let's begin there.”

❖ First Round of Responses

Jesus
“That cry was not mine alone—it was yours. It was every voice that has ever asked ‘Why?’ with no answer. On the cross, I became the echo chamber of all human anguish. I did not merely feel the world's pain—I became it.”

Elie Wiesel
“I saw a child hanged in Auschwitz. A man behind me whispered, ‘Where is God now?’ And I heard an answer: He is there—hanging from the gallows. If your cry, Jesus, was the cry of all, then God does not remove Himself from suffering. He is crucified again, wherever injustice reigns.”

Mother Teresa
“For fifty years, I felt only silence from God. I kept smiling, serving, loving—but I did not feel Him. And yet I knew He was present in the silence, even if I could not feel it. Maybe your cry teaches us that faith isn’t always comfort—it’s fidelity in the dark.”

Simone Weil
“Affliction is not just suffering. It’s the shattering of meaning. When God seems absent, we confront our spiritual poverty. But that is where we meet Him—not as power, but as emptiness filled with love. Your cry, Jesus, was a portal through which all suffering may find dignity.”

Dostoevsky
“In my cell before execution, I too felt silence. But later, I wrote: ‘I believe the world will be saved by beauty.’ Maybe your cry, Lord, was beautiful in its terror. Because in it, the innocent suffered without bitterness. And that is what redeems.”

Henri Nouwen – Follow-Up

“If that cry belongs to all of us, then how do we carry such unbearable weight? How does a soul hold both the horror of silence and the whisper of hope?”

❖ Second Round of Responses

Mother Teresa
“You don’t carry it alone. You carry it with Jesus. I used to pray: ‘Lord, if this is how You treat Your friends, no wonder You have so few.’ But He never left. His silence became the space where my love grew deeper.”

Elie Wiesel
“You carry it by refusing to become indifferent. Pain must not make us numb. The cry must become memory, and memory must become responsibility. That is the only way we don’t betray the silence.”

Jesus
“The weight was never meant to be yours alone. I bore it so you would never have to bear it without me. When you speak to the silence, even in despair, I am already inside your voice.”

Simone Weil
“To suffer without meaning is the greatest agony. But to suffer with the suffering of others—that creates sacred space. It empties the ego. And in that emptiness, grace can descend.”

Dostoevsky
“Let the cry turn you tender, not cynical. In every broken man, I saw Christ. And if we see Him there, then even silence is not empty—it is heavy with the presence we cannot yet name.”

Henri Nouwen – Final Question

“If your cry, Jesus, is still echoing through every refugee camp, hospital room, and forgotten alley—what does it ask of us now? What must we do with this sacred burden?”

❖ Final Round of Responses

Simone Weil
“Do not seek to fix the silence. Learn to kneel in it. Let your soul become a chalice for the pain of others. In that receptivity, God descends.”

Mother Teresa
“Love anyway. Smile anyway. Feed the hungry even when your heart feels dry. That is how we speak back to the silence—with presence.”

Jesus
“My cry is still being spoken—by the voiceless, the abandoned, the lost. Listen for it. Answer it not with doctrine, but with compassion. You don’t have to fix the silence. You only need to enter it with love.”

Elie Wiesel
“Memory is sacred. To forget the cry is to crucify the innocent again. Remember—and become a witness. Speak, not to explain God, but to keep humanity from vanishing into apathy.”

Dostoevsky
“The silence, the suffering—it turns you into something more than yourself. Into someone who kneels before mystery, and still believes in light.”

Closing Thoughts – Henri Nouwen

“I once wrote that ‘the wound is the place where the light enters you.’ Tonight, I see that your cry, Jesus, did not end on the cross. It continues in the broken. And yet—so does your presence. So does your love. And that, too, is eternal.”

Topic 3: Psalm 22 as Prophecy — Was This a Hidden Victory?

Setting: A vast, candlelit library with scrolls, Bibles, and Torahs stacked around a large oak table. Rain patters gently against stained glass windows that depict scenes from Psalm 22. A Torah scroll is open in the center, illuminated by a beam of golden light.

Participants:

• Jesus
• C.S. Lewis – Christian thinker of faith through pain
• Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel – Jewish theologian of prophetic awe
• Origen – Early Church mystic and allegorist
• Martin Luther – Reformer, theologian of grace in despair

Moderator: Thomas Merton

Introduction – Thomas Merton (Moderator)

Thomas adjusts the scroll, looking at each speaker.

“When Jesus quoted the first line of Psalm 22, was He expressing desolation—or invoking an entire sacred text? For in that psalm, despair turns to glory. Is it possible He was not only suffering, but signaling? Could His cry be both agony and victory?”

❖ First Round of Responses

Jesus
“When I cried that line, I was wrapped in every human doubt. But I was also naming the psalm that had always lived within me. Those who knew the scriptures would hear not only pain—but the beginning of a sacred arc: from forsakenness to faith, from bones out of joint to a people praising God across the nations.”

Rabbi Abraham Heschel
“In Jewish tradition, quoting the first line of a psalm evokes the entire psalm. You were not merely weeping—you were praying. And not only praying, but standing in solidarity with Israel’s suffering. Psalm 22 begins in lament but ends in universal hope. That hope is as Jewish as it is cosmic.”

C.S. Lewis
“I once wrote that pain is God’s megaphone. But this was no ordinary cry—it was prophecy fulfilled in real time. The psalm speaks of pierced hands and divided garments. What better way to reveal the divine script running beneath the tragedy? You were not just dying—you were composing a sermon through suffering.”

Origen
“Sacred texts are veils. Beneath the letter lies the spirit. Psalm 22 is the veil behind the cross. In quoting it, Christ became both text and meaning, both prophet and fulfillment. Even His silence between breaths was a verse unfolding.”

Martin Luther
“I was tormented by your cry, Lord. But when I read the psalm to its end, I wept. ‘He has not despised the affliction of the afflicted.’ You were not forsaken. You were writing the Gospel in blood and breath. That is grace—hidden beneath the appearance of wrath.”

Thomas Merton – Follow-Up

“You’ve all spoken of layers—textual, mystical, emotional. But what about the ordinary believer who hears only despair? How do we help them see the fullness of this moment, beyond the first line?”

❖ Second Round of Responses

C.S. Lewis
“We must teach people to read backwards. Read the pain, yes—but also read the hope that follows. Teach them that even in personal despair, the story is not over. Christ Himself quoted a psalm that ends in triumph. That’s the pattern.”

Rabbi Heschel
“Remind them: Lament is part of prayer. In Judaism, we do not flee from sorrow—we sanctify it. Let them walk through the psalm slowly. The pain belongs, but so does the promise. And both are sacred.”

Jesus
“I spoke one line aloud—but I whispered the rest in my soul. And so can you. The scriptures were not ornaments. They were my breath. Let the people know this: when you suffer, cling to every word that came before—and after. God hears even the verse you do not say.”

Martin Luther
“Tell them they are allowed to weep. But do not let the devil steal the psalm’s ending. The psalmist cried, but then remembered: ‘From you comes my praise in the great congregation.’ That’s not fantasy—that’s faith with dirt on its face.”

Origen
“If they read only the surface, they will see only tragedy. Invite them deeper. The scroll folds inward, like the soul. Even pain becomes scripture when offered to God.”

Thomas Merton – Final Question

“If Psalm 22 was not just a lament, but a liturgy in motion, then what does it reveal about the way God transforms suffering? Was the victory already alive—even on the cross?”

❖ Final Round of Responses

Jesus
“Yes. The victory was not waiting for Sunday. It was already present—hidden in surrender, sealed in obedience. Even in death, love was rising.”

C.S. Lewis
“Then even our pain, if offered honestly, becomes a portal. That line—‘My God, my God...’—was not the end. It was the hinge. The hinge of hope.”

Rabbi Heschel
“In quoting the psalm, you were joining the ancient cry of Israel. But you also became the answer to it. God did not stay distant. He entered the lament Himself.”

Martin Luther
“You proved grace can dwell inside groans. That even when we cry in agony, we may be closer to God than we feel. The Gospel is not always shouted. Sometimes it is gasped.”

Origen
“In quoting Psalm 22, you were not simply fulfilling prophecy. You were reweaving the fabric of human sorrow into sacred story. And that story is still being written in each soul who dares to pray while bleeding.”

Closing Thoughts – Thomas Merton

“Today we have seen a text not as a relic, but as living breath. The cross did not silence the psalms—it sang them with new meaning. And maybe that’s the task of every soul: to speak hope into our own unfinished verses.”

Topic 4: God in the Dark Night — When Absence Becomes Presence

Setting: A windswept monastery atop a desert mountain under a starless sky. The roundtable is lit only by oil lamps and the dim blue glow of night. Each speaker wears a simple robe. Around them, the stillness is thick with longing. Silence is not awkward—it is sacred.

Participants:

• Jesus
• St. John of the Cross – Mystic of the Dark Night of the Soul
• Meister Eckhart – Philosopher of divine emptiness
• Rumi – Poet of ecstatic surrender
• Howard Thurman – Mystic of inner liberation and stillness

Moderator: Etty Hillesum

Introduction – Etty Hillesum (Moderator)

Etty speaks softly, her voice warm but pained.

“When I was in the Westerbork transit camp, I still wrote: ‘Even here, life is full of beauty and meaning.’ I want to begin with a simple but impossible question: What does it mean when God goes silent? When Jesus cried out, ‘Why have you forsaken me?’, was that the end—or the beginning of a deeper presence? Please… share what silence has taught you.”

❖ First Round of Responses

Jesus
“The silence was real. But it was not absence—it was surrender. I had emptied myself so fully that even my awareness of the Father felt gone. And in that emptiness, love remained—not felt, but present. The dark night was not God leaving. It was God entering in a way too deep for words.”

St. John of the Cross
“Yes. The soul does not grow in sweetness alone. It must pass through the dark night—when God withdraws all spiritual comfort. Not to punish, but to purify. God’s love becomes so intimate it feels like loss. But that silence is fire—it refines the soul until only union remains.”

Meister Eckhart
“God is not something we feel. God is what remains when we are stripped of all feelings. I say: ‘I pray God to rid me of God.’ For even the idea of God can keep us from the experience of divine nothingness. In that forsaken cry, Jesus had nothing left but being itself—and that is where God is.”

Rumi
“When the soul is darkest, the Beloved is closest. The cry of forsakenness is the knock at the hidden door. And the door opens not with sound, but with surrender. Love does not always speak—it sometimes listens in silence so vast, it becomes the music of the stars.”

Howard Thurman
“Silence is the first language of God. In the Black Church, we learned to wait—to sit in the hush of our own pain and still know: God is not gone. He is the stillness inside the storm. When Jesus cried out, He was not abandoned—He was becoming the sanctuary for every soul left alone.”

Etty Hillesum – Follow-Up

“What you’re all describing is presence disguised as absence. But how does one live in that space—where God cannot be felt, and everything goes dark? How does one endure when the soul is blind?”

❖ Second Round of Responses

Jesus
“You don’t endure it by strength. You endure it by trust. My cry was not unbelief—it was love holding on when every light had gone out. If I had to feel the Father to obey, I would never have finished the cross.”

Rumi
“Let the soul break. Let the wine spill. What remains is the essence. In the dark, love has no shadow. It becomes everything. The wound is where light sleeps.”

St. John of the Cross
“Do not resist the night. The more you fight it, the longer it lingers. But if you consent—not to despair, but to being unmade—you will find the divine flame hidden under the ashes.”

Meister Eckhart
“You must consent to unknowing. The soul that seeks God in comfort will always miss Him. But the soul that waits in silence becomes the space in which God is born again.”

Howard Thurman
“The dark night is also a place of listening. Deep listening. I have sat in that silence, as my people groaned under chains. And I heard God—not in thunder, but in the still, small voice that said: You are not forgotten. That voice is quiet—but it moves mountains.”

Etty Hillesum – Final Question

“If we accept that the dark night is not punishment, but preparation, what then is its purpose? What is God doing in us, when it feels like He has vanished?”

❖ Final Round of Responses

St. John of the Cross
“He is emptying us of everything that is not Him. Until we can no longer tell the difference between our longing and His love. The soul becomes flame.”

Jesus
“In the silence, I was forming the path of redemption—not just for myself, but for you. I did not speak from the cross to explain pain. I entered it fully, so you would never face it alone.”

Meister Eckhart
“The purpose of the dark night is not comfort—it is birth. God is born in the soul only when the soul has died to itself. In that death, all things are made new.”

Rumi
“What God is doing? He is teaching the soul to dance without music. To trust without touch. To burn without fear. That is the true union—when even the silence becomes your Beloved.”

Howard Thurman
“He is enlarging the heart. Stretching it beyond the limits of sight, beyond the borders of fear. Until it becomes spacious enough to hold all of humanity—and all of Him.”

Closing Thoughts – Etty Hillesum

“I once said, ‘Even if they kill me, I will not hate. I will carry God inside me to the end.’ I believe that’s what Jesus did in His cry. Not despair. Not defeat. But love—so vast, it could hold the silence and still say, ‘Into Your hands I commit my spirit.’”

Topic 5: Redemption Through Suffering — Why Did It Have to Hurt?

Setting: A circular stone amphitheater at dusk. In the center burns a quiet fire, casting long shadows across ancient stones. Each speaker sits on a step facing inward. Behind them, mountains rise like silent witnesses. The stars begin to pierce the sky, one by one.

Participants:

• Jesus
• Søren Kierkegaard – Philosopher of faith and trembling
• Martin Luther King Jr. – Prophet of redemptive suffering
• Etty Hillesum – Witness of love through persecution
• Richard Rohr – Franciscan mystic of transformative pain

Moderator: St. Catherine of Siena

Introduction – St. Catherine of Siena (Moderator)

She kneels briefly before the flame, then stands, her voice ringing with quiet conviction.

“Jesus, you cried out in agony. You were innocent—and still, it hurt. We see this pattern across the ages: the most loving are often the most wounded. So I ask not just for doctrine, but for love: Why did it have to hurt? And how does suffering redeem?”

❖ First Round of Responses

Jesus
“It had to hurt—not because the Father demanded pain, but because love entered a broken world. To love in such a place is to bleed. I was not punished—I was poured out. My wounds are not about wrath. They are doors. And through them, every soul may walk free.”

Martin Luther King Jr.
“Suffering does not automatically redeem. But unmerited, nonviolent, voluntary suffering exposes evil—and opens hearts. On the cross, you bore injustice without hate. That’s why it transformed the world. You met violence with sacrificial love. That’s not weakness. That’s revolution.”

Søren Kierkegaard
“Suffering deepens the soul. Without it, there is no leap of faith—only ideas. But through despair, man confronts his limits, and from the edge, he sees God. Christ suffered not to display power, but to sanctify the absurd. It is not logic—it is love that suffers.”

Etty Hillesum
“I watched the world fall apart from within a camp, and still—I did not believe love had died. I think you cried, Jesus, not only because it hurt—but because your heart was still open while it did. That is the kind of strength the world cannot kill.”

Richard Rohr
“The cross is not a transaction—it’s a revelation. It reveals what love looks like in a world addicted to power. Suffering, when held with grace, becomes transformation. Not because God needs it—but because we do. It breaks the false self. It births the true.”

St. Catherine of Siena – Follow-Up

“You all speak of love made visible through pain. But what do we say to the ones who are suffering now—not voluntarily, but because of war, abuse, poverty? Is their pain redemptive too? Or is that a cruel romanticism?”

❖ Second Round of Responses

Jesus
“No suffering is good. I did not bless the pain—I entered it to rescue. Those who suffer unjustly are closest to my heart. I do not ask for pain. I ask that no pain be wasted.”

Martin Luther King Jr.
“Redemption is not the pain—it is the response. The oppressed must never be told to suffer quietly. But when they rise in dignity, without becoming the mirror of their oppressors—that is redemptive. It breaks the cycle.”

Etty Hillesum
“Even in the camps, I found a well of stillness inside. No one could take that. The suffering was not redemptive in itself—but the way we bore it, the love we still shared—that became our resistance. Our prayer.”

Søren Kierkegaard
“Suffering without meaning is despair. But suffering that turns the self toward God—even without answers—becomes a hidden covenant. The man who trusts in the dark, trusts truly.”

Richard Rohr
“We must never glorify pain. But we must also never forget that pain is a teacher—if we don’t numb it, if we don’t run from it. God does not delight in wounds. But He indwells them. That is the mystery.”

St. Catherine of Siena – Final Question

“Then tell me this: if you could speak to someone standing at the edge of despair tonight—wondering why they must suffer, and if it means anything at all—what would you say?”

❖ Final Round of Responses

Jesus
“I would say: I am here. I know your pain—not in theory, but in flesh. You are not alone. And nothing you suffer is forgotten. Let your tears fall into my wounds. There, they will become sacred.”

Martin Luther King Jr.
“I would say: You are not what they did to you. You are still a child of God. And your suffering, though not chosen, can still be transformed—into strength, into song, into justice.”

Søren Kierkegaard
“I would say: Do not try to solve your pain like a riddle. Live through it as a mystery. Faith does not remove suffering. It baptizes it.”

Etty Hillesum
“I would say: Don’t close your heart. Even here, something beautiful may grow. Not despite the pain—but from within it.”

Richard Rohr
“I would say: Trust the pattern. Everything belongs—even this. Not because it is good, but because God is. Love is not an escape from suffering. It is what gives it meaning.”

Closing Thoughts – St. Catherine of Siena

Her voice softens as the fire flickers.

“Perhaps this is the paradox we must live with: that a crucified God did not come to erase pain, but to inhabit it so fully that it became the door back to life. If that is true—then even in our deepest wound, we are not lost. We are held. And love, having suffered, now knows the way.”

Final Thoughts by Jesus

His eyes meet yours across time. The fire behind Him burns low, but His words glow with peace.

“I did not come to erase suffering—I came to inhabit it so fully that it could no longer separate you from love.

When you feel abandoned, remember: I felt that too. And still, I trusted. Not because I saw the light, but because I became it—for you.

You may not understand your sorrow yet. You may not hear God’s voice in the silence. But know this: your tears have not been ignored. Your ache has not been wasted. I have kept each one.

And when you cry, ‘Why, God?’, I will be there again—in the silence, in the waiting, in the echo of your voice. Not to explain—but to hold you.

Love does not always come in answers.

Sometimes… it comes in the form of a cry.”

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