lenten blog | March 29, 2024

The cry was for real

Throughout the year, the Southern New England Conference of the United Church of Christ reproduces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches.  These are the suggested readings for March 29th:  Psalm 22; Isaiah 52:13—53:12; Hebrews 10:16-25; and John 18:1—19:42.  I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.

Today is Good Friday.  This is the day Jesus is tortured to death on the cross.  This is Christianity’s most solemn of days.  Part of our tradition is that Jesus quotes today’s Psalm as He hangs dying upon the cross.  I have heard this quote explained away by the trajectory of Psalm 22 from abandonment to rescue.  I have heard that Jesus’ cry was not only “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”  It was the hidden message of the Psalm’s entirety that Jesus implied.  I think this is a pious attempt used to avoid the supposed scandal of Jesus’ confused desperation.  This is not novel.  In today’s Passion account from John’s Gospel, the earlier crucifixion accounts, such as the record of Psalm 22 in Mark’s Gospel, is somewhat sanitized of this embarrassment of a traumatized Jesus (cf. John 19:30).

I understand this piety, but I think it is unfaithful to the text.  Earlier in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus prays in the Garden of Gethsemane.  It seems that He repeats the same prayer three times (14:39).  This may be a sign of piety.  Paul will later write, “Pray without ceasing.” (1 Thessalonians 5:17)  Or it may be a subtle indication of something else.  In the story of the Exodus, we learn that Yahweh forbids Moses to enter the Holy Land because of his lack of faith at the waters of Meribah.  (Numbers 20:1-13)  Moses was commanded to strike the rock to release a flow of water.  It seems that the waters did not appear immediately after the first strike and so Moses struck a second time.  Yahweh judged the second strike as a sign of insufficient faith.

This is in the consciousness of the earliest believers.  Is the thrice-repeated prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane a reflection of Jesus’ awkwardness as He experiences a separation from God that He had never felt before in His life.  God was a constant, even if sometimes confusing (think of His time in the wilderness), presence for Jesus.  Now, as death approaches, does God feel distant, even absent?  Is this separation heard in the exacerbation of “‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’”  In the Garden of Gethsemane, as Jesus struggles to reach out in prayer, He still uses the familiar address of “‘Abba, Father,’” but on the cross that intimacy is gone.  Jesus is, instead, left to formally quote a Scripture passage.  It is quite possible that the verse quoted by Jesus from Psalm 22 was not meant to be the broader representation of the Psalm’s movement from abandonment to rescue.  It may just be a cry of desperation.

I share this not to undermine the theological nature of Jesus, but to respect the text’s honesty with Jesus’ struggle on the cross.  The physical torture is obvious, but it feels almost impious to venture into the spiritual torture Jesus endured, even to the point of feeling bereft of God’s assurance.  This confusion is the full humanity of Jesus bearing the weight of dying and death.  The cross is an abhorrent reality for Jesus, and one that Jesus endures while remaining faithful to the end even if without the assurance that this is the will of God.  To me this is the unimaginable torture of the Unique One. 
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On this most solemn of all days, we need to find our way to respect its gravity, to ponder the audaciousness of a Crucified God in the phraseology of Jurgen Moltmann, and to respect such a sacrifice.  If the sanctity of place is at all helpful with this, our church will be open for private meditation and prayer from noon until 3PM.     
If you’d like, here is the link to the Southern New England Conference’s daily reading schedule:  www.sneucc.org/lectionary.