For years Dr. Margaret Brand served as a missionary eye surgeon in southern India.  In the rural areas she would sometimes do a hundred cataract surgeries in a single day.

In one instance where there was no electricity, a 12-year-old boy volunteered to help. His job was to hold a large flashlight so that its beam gave Dr. Brand enough light for her work. Dr. Brand was dubious that he would be able to stand up to the trauma of seeing eyes sliced open & stitched, but for the first five operations he did his job impressively. During the sixth, however, he faltered.

“Little brother, show the light properly,” Dr. Brand instructed him. But she could see that he simply could not bear look at the eye. When she stopped and asked him if he was feeling well, she saw that tears were running down cheeks. “Oh, doctor, I cannot look,” replied the lad. “This one, she is my mother.”[1]

When Jesus was hanging on the cross, God the Father could not look. Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” At His baptism, God had declared, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17).

But a great shadow had come between Jesus and the Father when He was on that cross. Jesus was lonely on that cross because of you and me.

Yes, God had to turn His eyes away from His Son for those moments because of our sin. You see, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21) through putting our faith in Him.

Have you thanked Him that He was willing to pay that price and become sin for us so that we could be forgiven? Do it right now.

[1] Dr. Margaret E. Brand with Dr. James L. Jost, Vision for God (Grand Rapids, MI: Discovery House Publishers, 2006), 121.