Observation: On the cross, as one of his final sentences, Jesus calls out to God. He uses the word Eloi, translated as "my God", 'El' being the word for 'God' and 'oi' a version of the word for 'me' or 'my'. However, observers interpret it as being the same as the word Elijah, where 'El' still means 'God', but the suffix 'jah' is a way to invoke 'Yahweh', and thus Elijah means "the Lord is my God".
And just like that, the last public decree by Jesus is twisted and misunderstood yet again.
It is well understood that Jesus was not (just) crying out to God, or challenging God's love by wondering why he had been forsaken. Instead, Jesus was publicly quoting Psalm 22. In those days, scripture chapters were named, not numbered, and psalms were thus referenced by their first line. The name of Psalm 22 was, therefore, "Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani". The next (and last) thing Jesus is quoted as saying on the cross is "it is finished", which is the last line of Psalm 22. In between those two lines, the rest of that psalm is about ... a good servant of the Lord who is tortured by foreign people, publicly strung out on a tree, and executed, all while people mock him and the executioners gamble to see who gets his clothes.
Jesus is giving a clear and obvious final lesson ... that the prophesy of Psalm 22 is being fulfilled before everyone's eyes. However, the crowd standing there totally dismisses that lesson and invents their own flawed understanding, which is that - somehow, for some reason - Elijah is being called on to be a savior, and might now arrive.
There is no such promise in scripture; There is no teaching that Elijah now exists as some heavenly savior to be called upon to rescue believers in Yahweh. In order to reach this interpretation of the situation, those watching Jesus need to a) create a flawed understanding of scripture by embracing a concept that doesn't exist, and b) almost intentionally misunderstand what Jesus says and does in order to fit him into this flawed narrative.
Application: Misunderstanding the word of God, and then forcing Jesus into that flawed misunderstanding ... I am sure this event on the cross is the only time in human history that people have ever done those two things.
Of course I am being sarcastic. Many of us do this every day. I am SURE I have done this, and probably within the last 48 hours. We often WANT the word of God to say certain things, and to apply to certain situations, so we force our circumstances into some verse or lesson or proverb or parable by twisting the truth about those source-teachings so that they fit.
I want to think the bible has a LOT to say about topics across a wide range of modern issues ... gender confusion, political conflicts, gun violence, social media influence, race relations, drug use, etc. And yes, the bible DOES have a lot to say about these topics. However, I am betting that a Venn diagram representing the verses that address current social issues, and the verses I think address current social issues, has less overlap than I would like to believe. And the true word of God probably doesn't say what I think it says about such issues, either.
What the people hoped would happen at the cross was not a bad thing! It just wasn't aligned to God's word, and it wasn't the thing Jesus was telling them about. Likewise, the things we believe certain scripture teach aren't bad (they might even be accurate), but they may not be what the Lord is actually trying to tell us.
Prayer: Lord, every day I read your word, and I know your Holy Spirit reveals its truth to me in ways that I can understand, and ways that I am prepared to understand. I thank you for that so much. May I continue to seek only your wisdom and truth every day, avoiding my own ideas and misconceptions and expectations. Amen.
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