God not only fights for them but takes their humiliated condition upon the divine Person and thereby breaks open a new future for the poor, different from their past and present miseries. Here is the central meaning of the cross, dramatically revealed in the Markan account of Jesus’ cry of dereliction: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (15:34). These words show the depth of Jesus’ agony and the pain of being abandoned by his Father.
