Art My God My God Why Have You Forsaken Me
How was Jesus' cry from the cross, quoted in Aramaic, received by those standing near? "When some of the bystanders heard it, they said, 'Listen, he is calling for Elijah.' And someone ran, filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on a stick, and gave it to him to drinkable, saying, 'Wait, permit us see whether Elijah will come to take him down'" (Mark 15:35-36; Matthew 27:47,49). They misunderstood; they were non quite sure exactly what it was that Jesus had said.
Each year during Holy Week we Christians stand once again virtually the cross and hear Jesus' cry anew. Unlike those described in the Gospel, though, nosotros know exactly what he said and we recognize it as the opening poesy of Psalm 22.
But do we really know what it means? Is Jesus despairing on the cross? Or is he, rather, pointing to the end of the psalm where promise and praise are expressed?
How can we enter into Jesus' cry today? Was the psalmist looking forward to and predicting Jesus' decease?
To sympathize this meliorate, we will progress through three steps. First, we volition look at Psalm 22 by itself and seek to empathise it on its own terms. So, we volition examine how the first Christians drew on Psalm 22 to understand Jesus' decease. Finally, we will meet what pregnant this might have for us today.
Painful Prayer
When we feel blest in life and experience goodness and wholeness, we turn to God in praise and thanksgiving. Simply what happens when we experience just the reverse? What happens when nosotros are overcome by brokenness, suffering and death, when the relationships of our lives come apart? Lament is a prayer for aid coming out of pain.
Of the 150 psalms in the Book of Psalms, over 50 belong to the category of laments. While laments occur elsewhere in Scripture, both One-time and New Testaments, they are a form of prayer that is less familiar to us today."
Psalm 22 calls out to God, presents the suffering of the speaker, talks of enemies and ends in praise. It falls into 2 parts: verses 1-21 (lament) and verses 22-31 (praise).
Each of those sections tin can be subdivided into two parts: verses 1-11 (the psalmist and God), verses 12-21 (the psalmist and enemies); verses 22-26 (praise in the assembly of Israel), verses 27-31 (praise from all peoples).
Lament: Office Ane (verses 1-11)
Israel firmly believed that God was a God of life, a God who frees from oppression. Therefore, if I am experiencing decease and oppression, and then where is God?
The psalmist feels alone, addresses God directly and asks the heartfelt question, "Why?" (poesy ane). "Why take you forsaken me?"
What the psalmist is experiencing makes no sense; things do non fit together. God seems very distant in both space ("far," verses 1, 11, 19) and time ("by day,…by night," poesy 2).
This cry to God should not be confused with despair. In despair, we requite up on our relationship to God and let it go.
For the psalmist, that relationship has been foundational ("from my birth," 10). In fact, his enemies mock him precisely because he has been faithful to God (8). It is this bond of trust in God that the scoffers try to undermine.
We tin read through these verses and count how often the words I and you occur. Even if the psalmist does non experience God's closeness, he believes that God does care and is always inside shouting altitude. Lamenting is not a failure of faith but an human action of organized religion.
Complaining: Office Two (verses 12-21)
The beginning role of the psalm addressed more the psalmist's human relationship to God; the second office shifts to his relationship to others.
If God seems far off, the enemies are very near. They are described in animal imagery: stiff bulls, ravening lions, dogs, wild oxen (verses 12-thirteen, 16, 21)—all on the prowl and attacking.
The but activity we can clearly identify is one of mocking and gloating (7, 17). When we recall that the ancient biblical culture was very much an honour-shame culture, we tin can appreciate how much suffering this would bring to the psalmist.
The constant attack of the enemies takes its toll on the psalmist. He suffers physical and psychological breakdown and approaches expiry (14-fifteen, 16c-18). "I am poured out like h2o" well-nigh probable refers to tears. Many different body parts are mentioned: bones, heart, breast, mouth, natural language, jaws, easily and feet. The ancients did not make the sharp distinction that we exercise between physical and emotional suffering.
The psalmist feels he has been laid "in the dust of death" (15); the enemies likewise recollect he is equally good as expressionless and they begin to divvy upward his clothing (18). The concluding iii verses contain urgent pleas for God to come close (19), deliver (twenty) and salvage (21).
Praise: Part One (verses 22-26)
The change in tone from role one to role two is quite pronounced. From the language of suffering and pain, we motion to that of praise and thanksgiving. This sudden shift is typical of the lament psalms (see Psalms 6:ix-xi; 10:xvi-eighteen; 13:6b).
Scholars have offered various explanations. Perhaps the about mutual is that the psalmist has heard an oracle of conservancy, perhaps from a priest at the Temple. This gives him assurance that God has heard the prayer and that deliverance is on the way.
Instead of being surrounded by enemies who scorn, the psalmist is now surrounded by family unit and friends in "the congregation" (verses 22, 25) of organized religion. He fulfills his vows with a thanksgiving sacrifice which involves the eating of a meal. All offer praise to God considering God heard the cry of the afflicted and brought deliverance (24).
Praise: Office Two (verses 27-31)
The circumvolve of praise now moves from the psalmist and State of israel to all nations on the globe (verses 27-28), besides every bit people before usa in fourth dimension (29) and those who will come later u.s.a. (31). At the beginning of the psalm, the psalmist felt isolated and alone in space and time. Here at the end, the praise of God goes out to fill all infinite and time.
Psalm 22 is, thus, the prayer of a merely 1 who suffers innocently, of one who is surrounded by enemies and mocked precisely because of his fidelity to God. When God hears this cry and delivers, the just i offers praise and thanksgiving to God.
Proclaiming the Skillful News
We are so used to seeing Jesus on the cross that a lot of the shock of it has worn off. Equally one observer has noted, if Jesus were to come to earth today and be sentenced to decease, he would nearly likely be electrocuted.
And then Christians all over the earth would wear around their necks piffling silver and gold electric chairs! Jesus' death on the cross was a scandal and an obstacle that had to be explained.
The Passion narratives, then, were possibly the first Gospel materials to take taken shape. The strikingly like account of the final hours of Jesus' life in all four Gospels implies an ancient tradition. And like all the Gospel material, the Passion story is not a blank chronicle of past events but is filled with the faith of the earliest Christians who struggled to understand and explicate the tragic death of Jesus.
One of their commencement affirmations was, as Paul expressed it, that "Christ died for our sins in accord with the scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3). When Jesus identifies his betrayer at the Final Supper, "the Son of Man goes every bit information technology is written of him" (Mark 14:21). When he is arrested in the garden, Jesus rejects violent resistance, for "how and so would the scriptures be fulfilled, which say information technology must happen in this style?" (Matthew 26:54). He is arrested and carried off "that the scriptures be fulfilled" (Marker 14:49).
Cipher happened by hazard or misfortune. All was according to God'southward programme and God'due south will, as revealed in the Jewish Scriptures.
In addition to this general principle ("according to the scriptures"), the early Christians began alluding to or citing specific passages to bear witness that Jesus was also innocent. The Volume of Wisdom (2:12-18) presents an innocent one attacked considering of his faith in God, while Isaiah (52:13-53:12) presents God'southward retainer who suffers innocently for the sake of others.
Fulfilling the Scriptures
But when it came to describing Jesus' death scene itself, another text was particularly important: Psalm 22. In improver to showing how Jesus dies "according to the scriptures," it likewise is an eloquent presentation of the suffering of an innocent one who suffers precisely because of his faithfulness to God'due south will, and of someone who is ultimately vindicated by God.
- "And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take" (Marker xv:24; Matthew 27:35) recalls Psalm 22:18, "They carve up my wearing apparel among themselves, and for my wearable they bandage lots."
- "Those who passed by derided him, shaking their heads and saying…" (Mark 15:29; Matthew 27:39) recalls Psalm 22:7, "All who meet me mock me…they milkshake their heads."
- "Jesus cried out in a loud vocalism, 'Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?' which is translated, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Marker 15:34; Matthew 27:46) is a direct quotation from Psalm 22:one.
A further annotate is called for regarding an innuendo which we might await to find but, in fact, is not at that place. InThe New Revised Standard Version, Psalm 22:sixteen reads, "My easily and feet have shriveled."
Only the new Jewish Publication Gild translation reads, "Like a lion, (they maul) my hands and my feet."
The ancient Greek translation, called the Septuagint, renders it, "They accept pierced my hands and my feet," and information technology is this translation that was cited by many early on Christian writers. It is, even so, not used in the New Testament.
The original Hebrew of this verse is quite obscure, and its absence in the New Testament suggests that at this point the earliest Christians were non using the Greek. That Jesus' words are cited in Aramaic would as well point in this direction.
Downwards through the centuries, a number of Christian writers have maintained that Psalm 22, in fact, predicts Jesus' death in detail. Tin can we still affirm this today?
In 2001 the Pontifical Biblical Commission addressed this upshot expressly in The Jewish People and Their Scriptures in the Christian Bible (#21). That certificate says the Christian community believes that Jesus fulfills the Jewish Scriptures, just "it does not sympathize this fulfillment as a literal one." In addition, "fulfillment is brought near in a style unforeseen….It would be wrong to consider the prophecies of the Old Testament as some kind of photographic anticipations of future events."
The document stresses that the Christian reads these Old Testament texts "retrospectively." Like the first followers of Jesus, nosotros look back through our faith in the risen Christ and try to find in the Hebrew Scriptures ways to sympathize who Jesus is and what he has done.
Relating to Our Lives
To begin with, nosotros should understand Jesus' cry from the cantankerous exactly as it stands. He makes his own the prayer of the psalmist, an innocent homo who is suffering considering of his fidelity to God's volition in his life. As I have already explained, these are not words of despair but an expression of faith.
Matthew'due south and Marker's Gospels do non hesitate to prove Jesus in the utter desperation of feeling forsaken as he faces a terrible death. In these Gospels also, Jesus began the journey of the passion with an anguished prayer, "Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, non what I want merely what you desire" (Mark 14:35-36; Matthew 26:39).
While Psalm 22 ends with hope and praise, those are not the words on Jesus' lips. The Gospel of John shows us a more exalted Jesus who is more or less in control during his Passion; the darker elements are removed. Only Matthew and Marker show us more the homo Jesus who entered fully into our human being status. This is non a sentimental kind of piety.
In add-on to agreement Jesus' cry, we might ask, tin can we make it our own? Only this question has information technology backwards. The bespeak is non that we can enter into Jesus' cry just that Jesus has entered into ours.
For u.s., equally human beings, death is night and scary and real. Fifty-fifty though we believe and trust in God, death tin cause anxiety and anguish. Jesus does non bring u.s.a. deliverance from death but deliverance through decease. We live in a culture which, in many ways, is death-denying; information technology is afraid to take a articulate await at the fact and the significant of mortality.
The cry of the psalmist is a profoundly homo cry. Perhaps it is a witness our society could benefit from hearing.
We also need to realize that Jesus suffered and died because of his allegiance to God's will in his life. Jesus' preaching was good news for the poor; he ate with publicans and sinners. Many, including both political and religious leaders, found this offensive and threatening.
If we show fidelity to the didactics and example of Jesus, nosotros tin face like reactions. We may non face bodily decease. Simply we can face opposition and mockery in lesser, more subtle means that are still painful. "All who run into me mock at me;…they shake their heads" (Psalm 22:7). Do we continue to trust in the Lord?
In addition, while in that location are no sure references in the New Testament to the second part of Psalm 22 (the hymn of praise), nosotros practise encounter in the Gospels that Jesus was vindicated. His resurrection from the dead is God's stamp of approval on his life.
Through the death of Jesus, the pregnant of death has been, as it were, inverse from the inside. Instead of representing the ultimate separation, information technology is now the path to greater matrimony.
The risen Christ is present now in our midst and gathers a congregation of religion around him to recount the praises of what God has washed and to share in a thanksgiving (eucharistic) repast.
At the end of Psalm 22, as in the Gospels, the circle of praise should go out to embrace the whole world. It is a vision of inclusiveness that breaks down all the barriers that we, as humans, are too eager to ready. The death of Christ points us frontwards to the day when God'southward kingdom will be all in all.
This yr, once once again, nosotros will stand near the cross and hear Jesus' cry anew. We know what he is maxim. Practise we understand its meaning and the challenge that it represents?
Psalm 22
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you lot so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you practice not respond;
and past night, but find no rest.
three However you are holy, enthroned on the praises of State of israel.
iv In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried, and were saved; in yous they trusted, and were non put to shame.
6 But I am a worm, and not human being; scorned by others, and despised by the people.
seven All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they milk shake their heads;
viii "Commit your cause to the Lord; let him evangelize—let him rescue the 1 in whom he delights!"
nine Yet it was yous who took me from the womb; you lot kept me safety from my mother's chest.
10 On y'all I was bandage from my birth, and since my mother diameter me y'all accept been my God.
11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is most and in that location is no one to assist.
12 Many bulls encircle me, stiff bulls of Bã'shan surround me;
13 they open broad their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion.
xiv I am poured out like h2o, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted inside my breast;
15 my mouth is dried upwardly similar a potsherd, and my natural language sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of decease.
sixteen For dogs are all effectually me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My easily and feet have shriveled;
17 I tin can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my article of clothing they cast lots.
xix But yous, O Lord, practise not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the domestic dog!
21 Salve me from the mouth of the lion!
From the horns of the wild oxen, yous have rescued me.
22 I volition tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him! All y'all offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all y'all offspring of Israel!
24 For he did not despise or abhor the disease of the afflicted; he did not hibernate his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
25 From you lot comes my praise in the corking congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall call back and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
28 For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations.
29 To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow downwards; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
xxx Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told near the Lord,
31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
All Scripture citations are fromThe New Revised Standard Version of the Bible.
Add new comment
Source: https://www.franciscanmedia.org/st-anthony-messenger/may-2017/psalm-22-my-god-my-god-why-have-you-forsaken-me
0 Response to "Art My God My God Why Have You Forsaken Me"
Post a Comment