This Sunday's lectionary series includes Psalm 22.
It's not an easy psalm to pray. Because the once place most of us know this psalm from is the line that Jesus quotes on the cross: "Why have you forsaken me?" (verse 1).
That line has spun so much bad theology. Witness Anselm's "satisfaction" theory of the atonement.
So what's one to do with this psalm -- well before Good Friday, I should add.
Fortunately, the psalm itself helps. Because the psalm culminates in this line:
It's not an easy psalm to pray. Because the once place most of us know this psalm from is the line that Jesus quotes on the cross: "Why have you forsaken me?" (verse 1).
That line has spun so much bad theology. Witness Anselm's "satisfaction" theory of the atonement.
So what's one to do with this psalm -- well before Good Friday, I should add.
Fortunately, the psalm itself helps. Because the psalm culminates in this line:
... did not despise the suffering of the afflicted one (or the poverty of the poor); nor turn away from me, but heard when I cried (v. 24).That, my friends, is the answer to the question posed in verse 1. And I maintain that it's the answer Jesus called into the minds of his hearers when he asked that question from the cross. Because the cry of the cross issues in the call of Easter:
All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him --
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
They will proclaim his righteousness,
declaring to a people yet unborn:
He has done it! (vv. 29-31)