A listener named Cathleen calls into the show and asks a question about Jesus’ last moments on the Cross, “Why does the crowd think Jesus is calling Elijah when he says, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” Cathleen explains that the Aramaic sounds like he is saying “Eli,” and she was wondering if the Jews misunderstood him.
Father Dave explains that we should be careful not to take the Gospel account as an exact transcript. “They would have, particularly with the King of the Jews hanging on the Cross above them, Jews of his time, and Jews of today would be expecting that Elijah would be the one to return first before the Messiah came … They might have easily been reacting to the fact that the Jews were anticipating Elijah to come back before the Messiah, so they were kind of mocking him.” They also may have thought that Jesus was calling on Elijah to save him.
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Father Dave says that what we should be asking is, “How do I mishear the words of Jesus?” Cathleen then goes on to ask, “Did Jesus feel forsaken?” Father Dave says that we can’t fully know: “That is actually a quote from Psalm 22, and he could have been quoting Psalm 22 to fulfill a prophecy. If we read certain Gospel accounts, Jesus is completely divine and completely in control all throughout the entire Passion, and in others, he’s not. So, we can’t limit it to that. That may be the case, but not necessarily.” (Original Air 4-19-17)