The cross of the Son of God - All The Good Seed Daily Devotionals for 2025

Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? That is, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Matthew 27:45.46.

The cross of the Son of God
How did the people whom Jesus had come to save treat Him? Not as a king, nor as a prophet, nor as a righteous person, not even as a human being. Those earthworms, with their vehement hatred, humiliated Him to the point of saying, "I am a worm, and no man, a reproach of men" (Psalm 22:6). They estimated His worth at thirty pieces of silver, just when He thought them worth dying for. They captured Him by night like a robber, bound Him and brought Him before Caiaphas, Herod and Pilate. They crowned Him, as if He were a king, but with thorns and mocked Him. They spat at Him and crucified Him between two criminals.

God, His God, upheld Him beneath Satan's anger, the hatred of the Pharisees, the clamouring of the people, Pilate's cowardice and the sarcasm of the priests. But who comforted Him when the wrath of the righteous, holy God swept down on him? Such a death, capital punishment and all that outrage are the bitterness of crucifixion, but the peak of of the bitterness in this case was elsewhere.

We see how God had laden His Son with the iniquity of us all, punishing Him for our sins, letting Him cry out from His parched throat: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

Does that leave your eye dry, and your heart cold?

(adapted from Alphonse Monod)

Today's reading: Job 6:1-30 · Acts 7:17-34