Matthew 27:45-49: in context

As Jesus hangs on the cross, darkness covers the land from the sixth hour to the ninth. And at the ninth hour Jesus cries out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, lima sabachthani, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It is the deepest cry in all the Gospels, wrung from the Son of God in his agony, a cry of abandonment from the one who had always known unbroken communion with the Father, now crying out in the darkness as one forsaken.

This cry must be approached with reverence, for it takes us into a mystery at the heart of our salvation. The Son, who had known the Father's presence without interruption from all eternity, cries out in the darkness as one forsaken. However we understand the depth of it, the cry tells us that on the cross Jesus entered into forsakenness, into the God-abandonment that is the wage of sin, bearing it in our place. He was bearing our sin, and with it the separation from God that sin brings; he entered the darkness and the abandonment we had earned, so that we might not have to bear it. The sinless one cried, why have you forsaken me, that we, who deserved to be forsaken, might never finally be. There is a great comfort hidden in this terrible cry. Because Jesus was forsaken, we need never be. He entered the God-abandonment that our sin deserved, took it upon himself in the darkness of the cross, so that those who are his might be spared it, might know instead the unbroken presence of God. The forsakenness he bore is the forsakenness we are spared. And so to us God says, I will never leave you nor forsake you, and he can say it because his Son was forsaken in our place. When we feel abandoned, in darkness, cut off, we may look to the cross, where Jesus cried out as one forsaken so that we would not be, and know that the abandonment he bore has secured for us the presence we could never have earned. He was pierced for our transgressions, Isaiah says; the punishment that brought us peace was on him. The cry of dereliction is the sound of that punishment being borne, the Son forsaken in the darkness that we might be brought home. We approach it with reverence and with gratitude: that the Son of God entered forsakenness in our place, crying, why have you forsaken me, so that we, his own, might never be forsaken, but held forever in the presence he purchased for us at such a cost.

When I feel abandoned, in darkness, cut off from God, can I look to the cross where Jesus cried out as one forsaken, and take hold of the truth that he entered the God-abandonment my sin deserved so that I might never finally be forsaken, receiving with reverence and gratitude the unbroken presence of God that his forsakenness purchased for me?