April 02, 2023
Palm Sunday
Early on in my life I was troubled by the words Jesus utters from the cross that are remembered in the Gospels according to Mark and Matthew. “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?†I couldn’t understand how Jesus, God’s beloved Son, could feel abandoned by God. Only with time did I come to greater understanding.
“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?†is the opening verse of Psalm 22. By reciting this verse from the cross, Jesus and the evangelists Mark and Matthew are inviting us listeners and bystanders to recall the story of Jesus’ ancestors. Ancient Israel spoke to God about everything through psalms. Psalms are Jewish prayers and hymns. Some are called “laments†that weave tragedy and blessing together like a Country Western Song. You’ll recall Tevye in the musical Fiddler on the Roof – he often has conversations with God trying to reconcile his Jewish faith and traditions with realities of life. In sorting things out with God, Tevye prays “on the one hand†and then prays “on the other hand.â€
Lament Psalms express the worse parts of human life: hunger, thirst, sickness, suffering, loss, violence, fear, isolation and death. Yet these psalms, these prayers, almost always, couple anguish cries with confident assurances. The experiences of a hidden and remote God stand alongside the experience of a close and saving God, consider Psalm 13 verse 6, “I will sing to the Lord, because he has dealt bountifully with me.†Many of these lament psalms can baffle us, so suddenly do they turn from expressions of unbearable pain to exuberant praise.
We see this shift in Psalm 22. In the first half of the prayer, the psalmist suffers from exposure, encircled by wild animals and evil doers, verbally assaulted with taunts and ridicule, and physically gaunt with a hemorrhaging heart. Death is near and God is far away. Verse 18 is a premonition of what happens to Jesus. “They divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.†But with verses 19 to 21, the lament becomes an appeal, “But you O Lord, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid!†Beginning with verse 22 until the ending verse 31, the psalm is a hymn of praise, “I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.†The sufferer who laments God’s apparent silence now declares that God does listen, that God does not withdraw, that God does save.
Hearing this Psalm on the lips of Jesus is not an expression of despair but of profound honesty and of deep faith in God, the God Jesus calls Father. How can we kneel in prayer and not experience tensions – between human suffering and divine salvation, between the absence and presence of God, between lament and praise? When we ask ourselves why we praise God when so many suffer, why we proclaim the Kingdom of God in a world where unjust powers rule with such ruthlessness, it is because we are praying with Jesus on the cross. God’s beloved Son prays the psalm with us.
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