Heaven's Gaze

The following article originally appeared in Thann’s “The Equipped” Weekly Newsletter on October 2, 2024. For more information on Thann’s weekly email, click here.

It was the moment when heaven looked away, and it is, for me, the most anguish-invoking moment in the Bible.

This moment was foreshadowed in Psalm 22:1 and then recorded in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34:

“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’(which means ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’)” (Matt. 27:46).

Jesus suffered immensely on the day of his crucifixion. He was beaten, ridiculed, tortured, and died a physically gruesome death. Even so, it is this moment that describes perhaps the most agony of the ordeal. It is in this moment Jesus recognizes His Father has turned away, and it seems that realization is simply too much for Jesus to bear, and He cries out loudly in despair.

Jesus felt abandoned. He felt alone in His place of greatest need. What a desperately empty feeling.

As a father, I find myself marveling most at the sacrifice of God the Father in this moment. We know from scripture that His love for His only son, Jesus, was immense (Matt. 3:17, 2 Pet. 1:17). Can you imagine the grief this decision to turn away from His son must have caused? We do not have the capacity to comprehend the impact on the all-powerful God, but we do know Jesus needed and wanted the assurance of His Father by His side, and He was denied it.

I would walk over burning broken glass just to be with my children in their moment of greatest pain and need.

You certainly would, as well.

So why did a loving, all-powerful God turn away? Why did He leave Jesus, His beloved son, to die alone and abandoned? It seems unthinkable.

The answer is even more unfathomable: It was because His love for you was even stronger than His desire to provide relief to His son! That sounds almost sacrilegious but read these familiar words from John 3:16 as though encountering them for the first time: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

The God of the universe turned His gaze away from His one and only beloved son in order to gaze on you! The Father’s heart was broken in this moment, but it was broken in order that it might be offered to you, and to open the possibility that you would be adopted into sonship with Him (Rom. 8:15)!

Heaven’s gaze turned away from its beloved. It did so because the Father’s heart was—and is—for you!

I invite you to find a few quiet moments to sit and bask in the intensity of Kari Jobe’s powerful depiction of this moment on the cross, and the ensuing victory it unleashed. As you listen, consider these opening lyrics, and how the Father’s sacrifice punctuates the magnitude of His love for you! 

The moon and stars they wept
The morning sun was dead
The Savior of the world was fallen
His body on the cross
His blood poured out for us
The weight of every curse upon Him

One final breath He gave
As Heaven looked away
The Son of God was laid in darkness
A battle in the grave
The war on death was waged

The power of hell forever broken