What A Price Jesus Paid

Agony showed its cruel face in the flood,
When men squirmed, that one last breath to inhale;
And as Egypt's young prides drowned in the mud,
The God-driven sea o'er them prevail.
What depths of pain among the millions slain,
We'll never know, in Hitler's holacaust?
No pen can describe screams lifted in vain.
Where in torment died vast legions of lost;
Nor can sanity hold when minds are thrust
Into the bloody battles of earth's wars!
All these fade in His cry of wounded trust,
Torn from Christ when hung 'twixt earth and stars:
"My God, My God! Why have you forsaken me?"
What a price He paid, for us to be free!

Those readers who are familiar with the words of the Bible will recognize in the lines of this poem the drowning of all people except the eight in Noah's family early in human history (Genesis 6); the drowning of the Egyptian army in the Red Sea, because they persisted in chasing the Israelites into the dry ground of the sea-bottom while God had held the waters back, but released them, destroying the army (Exodus 14:26-28); and one of the statements of Jesus as He was dying on the cross.

It is understandable that because of the suffering He endured during His trial and crucifixion, Jesus may have been pushed to the extreme limits of endurance, enough to call on His Father with a human question that any of us might have made under such circumstances. After all, the tormented cry came while Jesus was being tortured to death for all the sins of mankind---the enormity of the wages He paid was matched by the enormity of hurt and stress.

However, there is another reason that Jesus made this cry. Throughout His ministry on earth, He was very conscious of the approximately 340 prophecies about Him and His life in the Old Testament. Had He failed to fulfill every single one, it would have given critics and doubters a logical basis for refutation of His Messiahship. Therefore, throughout His career, He went out of His way to fulfill every prophecy, even those who didn't seem significant. For example, He could have walked into Jerusalem that last week, but since Zechariah 9:9 prophesied that He would enter Jerusalem 'riding on a donkey', He made it a point to secure a donkey to ride on. The doubters have searched for one violation, but they have failed.

If you will open you Bible to Psalm 22 and read the first verse, you will find this very cry in the same words. Since this was a hymn that Jews in synagogues had been singing since the time David wrote it one thousand years ago, Jesus knew the Jews surrounding the cross would remember the first line, which was the title, of that Psalm. Perhaps He meant it as a reminder that He was in fact the Messiah described by David that was to come. What an awesome Savior! How can anyone doubt the truth of the Bible?