IT CAUSES ME TO TREMBLE
Psalm 22 (NRSV)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—let him rescue the one in whom he delights!” Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled; I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
__________________
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
__________________
There are some moments, some experiences that don’t lend themselves to words. If that is true for anything, it is true for Good Friday. “Were You there” lays a burden on all of us. Being there, being present to the suffering and pain, being present to the sacrifice and surrender is almost more than we can bear. If we add in the truth that somehow Jesus’ suffering is tied to our suffering, then we tremble even more.
Maybe it’s because there aren’t any words that in this moment Jesus turned to a psalm. Was it a psalm? Or did Jesus just utter words that spoke of the pain and the sense of abandonment? Or somehow both? Did the psalm Jesus learned as a boy give words to a moment beyond words? And if it was a moment of remembering, did he remember the whole psalm? Or the just the words he spoke through bruised and bloodied lips? Did he remember that Psalm 22 turns to praise at the end? Like so many of the psalms of lament, this one moves from despair to hope; this one begins in pain and moves to awe and wonder.
It seems too much. Too much for him; too much for us. Though our suffering pales in light of his, we are uncomfortable with the move from brokenness to glory. It is too simple, too easy, too soon. We want to praise. We really do. Even when we don’t realize it, we do. There is something deep down inside us, something in the design of our very being that causes us to need to praise, to lift up our hearts to God. We just don’t think we are worthy of singing God’s praise. We don’t think God wants to hear our voice. We’re pretty sure that God would prefer praise sung only by those who have it all together.
Except that we’d be wrong, if that’s what we think. We’d be wrong.
“From you comes my praise.” Did you notice that? From you, from God comes the praise from my lips. God is not just the object of praise; God is the source of praise. It isn’t our goodness that allows us to praise, it is God’s. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” At some point in our lives, we will feel abandoned; we will feel cut off; we will feel like a worm, as the psalmist does in verse six. We’ll feel like our bones are all out of joint, like our hearts are melting like wax, as in verse fourteen. We will feel as if dogs are snapping at our heels, as if the sword is about to descend, as if our hands and feet aren’t working any more.
Psalm 22 is a tragic tale. But interwoven throughout the psalm, there is the call to praise, the call to faith, and the call to trust in the goodness of God. How do you trust in God when your bones are out of joint? How do you praise when your heart is melted like wax and your enemies are dividing your clothes like spoils of war?
Go home. That’s how. Home where you belong. It is where you are a part, where you pledged your faith, where you made your vow to belong. “From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him” (22:25). In the great congregation. we can find our voice again. And great doesn’t just mean big, it means important. It means the group that matters, the people of God, who have helped to shape you, who have made you who you are, who you couldn’t do without. From God comes the praise, comes the words that I need to sing, even through melty hearts and dislocated joints;, from God comes my praise in the midst of the great congregation – in the midst of the people who have decided to love me even though I’m not all that lovable; in the midst of the people who build me up when I am coming apart; in the midst of the people I have loved back to wholeness, as they have loved me back to wholeness From God comes my praise in the midst of the great congregation.
Thanks be to God! Take a look through Psalm 22. Where did it get better? It doesn’t say, “things were bad for a while but are better now.” The psalm says “God heard me,” which could mean healing has happened, or it could mean that the psalmist’s faith was shored up enough to believe that even though his bones were still dislocated and his heart was still in a puddle, God had not forsaken him after all. All this praise may be coming from a sick bed or a wooden cross. But if from a sick bed, it is a sick bed surrounded by the congregation, the great congregation of the people of God. There is hope in that presence, in that community. Praise rises from the gathered people of God.
Psalm 22 (NRSV)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—let him rescue the one in whom he delights!” Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled; I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do not be far away! O my help, come quickly to my aid! Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! From the horns of the wild oxen you have rescued me. I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him; stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him. From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. The poor shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever! All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.
__________________
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh, sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
__________________
There are some moments, some experiences that don’t lend themselves to words. If that is true for anything, it is true for Good Friday. “Were You there” lays a burden on all of us. Being there, being present to the suffering and pain, being present to the sacrifice and surrender is almost more than we can bear. If we add in the truth that somehow Jesus’ suffering is tied to our suffering, then we tremble even more.
Maybe it’s because there aren’t any words that in this moment Jesus turned to a psalm. Was it a psalm? Or did Jesus just utter words that spoke of the pain and the sense of abandonment? Or somehow both? Did the psalm Jesus learned as a boy give words to a moment beyond words? And if it was a moment of remembering, did he remember the whole psalm? Or the just the words he spoke through bruised and bloodied lips? Did he remember that Psalm 22 turns to praise at the end? Like so many of the psalms of lament, this one moves from despair to hope; this one begins in pain and moves to awe and wonder.
It seems too much. Too much for him; too much for us. Though our suffering pales in light of his, we are uncomfortable with the move from brokenness to glory. It is too simple, too easy, too soon. We want to praise. We really do. Even when we don’t realize it, we do. There is something deep down inside us, something in the design of our very being that causes us to need to praise, to lift up our hearts to God. We just don’t think we are worthy of singing God’s praise. We don’t think God wants to hear our voice. We’re pretty sure that God would prefer praise sung only by those who have it all together.
Except that we’d be wrong, if that’s what we think. We’d be wrong.
“From you comes my praise.” Did you notice that? From you, from God comes the praise from my lips. God is not just the object of praise; God is the source of praise. It isn’t our goodness that allows us to praise, it is God’s. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” At some point in our lives, we will feel abandoned; we will feel cut off; we will feel like a worm, as the psalmist does in verse six. We’ll feel like our bones are all out of joint, like our hearts are melting like wax, as in verse fourteen. We will feel as if dogs are snapping at our heels, as if the sword is about to descend, as if our hands and feet aren’t working any more.
Psalm 22 is a tragic tale. But interwoven throughout the psalm, there is the call to praise, the call to faith, and the call to trust in the goodness of God. How do you trust in God when your bones are out of joint? How do you praise when your heart is melted like wax and your enemies are dividing your clothes like spoils of war?
Go home. That’s how. Home where you belong. It is where you are a part, where you pledged your faith, where you made your vow to belong. “From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him” (22:25). In the great congregation. we can find our voice again. And great doesn’t just mean big, it means important. It means the group that matters, the people of God, who have helped to shape you, who have made you who you are, who you couldn’t do without. From God comes the praise, comes the words that I need to sing, even through melty hearts and dislocated joints;, from God comes my praise in the midst of the great congregation – in the midst of the people who have decided to love me even though I’m not all that lovable; in the midst of the people who build me up when I am coming apart; in the midst of the people I have loved back to wholeness, as they have loved me back to wholeness From God comes my praise in the midst of the great congregation.
Thanks be to God! Take a look through Psalm 22. Where did it get better? It doesn’t say, “things were bad for a while but are better now.” The psalm says “God heard me,” which could mean healing has happened, or it could mean that the psalmist’s faith was shored up enough to believe that even though his bones were still dislocated and his heart was still in a puddle, God had not forsaken him after all. All this praise may be coming from a sick bed or a wooden cross. But if from a sick bed, it is a sick bed surrounded by the congregation, the great congregation of the people of God. There is hope in that presence, in that community. Praise rises from the gathered people of God.
music by Rebecca | Today’s devotion comes from Discipleship Ministries, an agency of The United Methodist Church. For more, visit: www.discipleshipministries.org |