Seeds for 03/25/2024 - Psalm 22:1-5
Scripture:
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the one Israel praises.
4 In you our ancestors put their trust;
they trusted and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried out and were saved;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
Observation: The first verse leaps off the page. We are familiar with it from the crucifixion narratives in Matthew and Mark. We’re invited to treat it less like a quotation that stands alone and more like an allusion that beckons us to investigate its original context.
The opening verses of the psalm descend to the depths of despair. For a people inclined to hear the Lord’s promise to Joshua—“I will never leave you nor forsake you”—as a spoken to themselves as well, this is a daring beginning. That it exists in the scripture is a testament to the psalms performing a sort of dual function in the Bible. They are inspired scripture—“the Word of God for the people of God.” And they are human words to God in response to who He is and what He has revealed in word and action.
The author of this psalm knows that he can speak this frankly to God. He doesn’t have to sanitize his theology for appropriate praise and prayer, but feels license to share the roller coaster ride, thereby authenticating it as a usual part of the life of faith. Sure enough, on the cross at the very cusp of death, Jesus cries these words and evokes this psalm’s story.
The key word for me is “yet.”
“Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One.” (verse 3)
For the psalmist, “yet” allows him (and us) to be as raw and frank as we dare in describing our present experience while simultaneously acknowledging the truths we know about the Lord. “Yet” means we can acknowledge and contrast the immediate with the eventual, the postage-stamp size experience looming large over the present moment with the great canvas of time on which God is still actively at work “for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His purpose.”
Application:
When have you needed the permission of “yet” to acknowledge the ultimate goodness of the Lord and the immediate true hardness of life?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, thank you for welcoming us to pour out our hearts when discouraged and downhearted. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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