There are no more scandalous lines in the sacred Scripture than the despondent words of the crucified savior, “My God, my God, why have your forsaken me?” Christians well know that Jesus Christ is indeed divine, that he is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, that he is God’s very own Son “… consubstantial with the Father,” as the new Roman Missal will soon proclaim.
So to hear this divine person publicly express fear of abandonment and apprehension about rejection certainly can be shocking to pious ears. And if the believer stood just a bit closer to the cross, he would hear even more discouraging words from the lips of the Master: “ My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief. I am a worm, hardly human, scorned by everyone, despised by the people. Do not stay far from me, for trouble is near, and there is no one to help.” Clearly this is a picture of dereliction and opprobrium.
Jesus, good Jew that he was, is here actually quoting Psalm XXII which certainly begins in despair but which closes with resounding hope. The psalm concludes, “Then I will proclaim your name to the assembly; in the community I will praise you: You who fear the Lord, give praise! All descendants of Jacob, give honor; show reverence, all descendants of Israel! For God has not spurned or disdained the misery of this poor wretch, he did not turn away from me, but heard me when I cried out. I will offer praise in the great assembly; my vows I will fulfill before those who fear him. And I will live for the Lord; my descendants will serve you. The generation to come will be told of the Lord, that they may proclaim to a people yet unborn the deliverance you have brought.” So Psalm XXII is not at all the lament that its opening words would indicate. Rather Psalm XXII is a declaration of hope in the midst of adversity, an affirmation of deliverance from a mournful plight.
Psalm XXII is thus a happy choice for the liturgy of Palm Sunday that certainly begins the church’s passage through a desolate Holy Week but which promises ultimate relief to those who persevere. As the first reading for Sunday, taken from Isaiah, reads, sadly at first but then hopefully, “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced; I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.” Yes, Christ and later believers as well will have their share of anguish and humiliation, but they will also have the consolation of knowing that God is indeed their strength, their support and their savior.
The New Testament reading from the Letter to the Philippians starts off equally grim. “Christ Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped. Rather, he emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness; and found human in appearance, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” The whole sad history of Jesus’ rejection by the religious leaders, betrayal by a chosen friend, abandonment by his closest companions, tortured at the hands of pagans and dying amongst public ridicule is reflected in these few words. The Gospel of Palm Sunday, this year according to St. Matthew, will recount this shameful episode in greater detail. But happily neither the passage from Philippians nor the tale of Jesus Christ ends with the tragedy of Calvary. St. Paul continues, “Because of this, God greatly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, of those in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Again, the patient endurance of suffering on behalf of the Christian who derives his strength and fortitude ultimately from God is never in vain. As the bleak start of Psalm XXII yields to an experience of joy in the great assembly, as the suffering servant from Isaiah is delivered from disgrace and shame, as Jesus, the God-made-man, is resurrected after the tragedy of Golgotha, so the believer who finds his courage in God will share in the victory assured time and again by Scripture.
