“Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord Thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.”

It was when Peter would have withstood him as he set his face steadfastly to meet this death at Jerusalem, that he gave Peter the same kind of answer that he gave to Satan in the wilderness. “Then the devil leaveth him, and behold angels came and ministered unto him,” saith St. Matthew. They brought him the food he had waited for, walking in the strength of the word. He would have died if it had not come now.

“And when the devil had ended all the temptation, he departed from him for a season.” So saith St. Luke. Then Satan ventured once more. When? Was it when, in the agony of the last faint, the Lord cried out, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” When, having done the great work, having laid it aside clean and pure as the linen cloth that was ready now to enfold him, another cloud than that on the mount overshadowed his soul, and out of it came a voiceless persuasion that, after all was done, God did not care for his work or for him?

Even in those words, the adversary was foiled—and forever. For when he seemed to be forsaken, his cry was still, “My God! My God!”

Commentary

by Leah Morency

The mercy of God, his dealing tenderly with us, is the highlight of this passage.

A tender and merciful Father would quickly deal with our temptation to run into the fires of Hell, thinking it was the warm avenue of escape.  God the Father allowed the ultimate trial of the finite child, upon himself, in the Son.

Christ experienced Mystery. Felt the unknowable and vast void of insecurity in the self, and he felt it completely. 

 There was no partition in his humanity to reserve room for the certainty of the divine.  Christ was tempted as we must and will be; in the moment when His separation from the Father was known to Christ the greatest, his spirit strove against the temptation, he did call out My God, My God.  

He deals tenderly with us.  He forms, inhabits the space of fear, insecurity, finiteness, even futility, hopelessness and despair. And He clings to the word, the truth, to obedience, and to life. 

In some way, Christ completed a work so we never need know the separation that Christ experienced. He came to the ultimate point of humanity, so that he could begin the way back for us, for our sake to follow in his steps.