FOURTH MONDAY 11th/MARCH OF LENT
This week, I will briefly share some thoughts from Psalm 22. This Psalm is messianic, meaning that it refers not only to David’s life but also tells us much about what Jesus said and what took place during his death and resurrection.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? ”(Psalm 22:1 NIV11-GKE)
“About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).”
(Matthew 27,46 NIV11-GKE)
This rhetorical question has caused ripples through the centuries and some sleepless nights to those who heard it from Jesus’s own voice. It is indeed more than a question. It is the bitter cry of pain and of a father who cannot be reached. Like the cry of a boy being left in a hospital bed in Gaza looking for his father, who can’t be found.
Jesus’ second question is pure emotional pain, looking for a father who is distant, a father who has rejected his own son.
This is why the Gospel is so powerful. The Gospel was born from a place of suffering and separation. We all have experienced physical, emotional, and spiritual separation from God. The power of sin that separates us from God has been broken by the firstborn of all creation. Let this week of Lent remind us that Jesus was forsaken by his own father so that you and I can be found.
In the midst of troubled times, be with us, God of well-being. May faithful remembering lead to compassionate reimagining. Amen.1
- Walter Brueggemann, A Way Other Than Our Own, Accordance electronic ed. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017), 55. ↩︎
D.L. 
Leave a comment