Excerpted from 2023 Lenten Guide: A Season of Renewal, a Lenten Guide for Lectionary Year A from the North Carolina Council of Churches.
Psalm 22
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 me;
they sneer 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;
they bound my hands and feet.
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.
When things are particularly discouraging on the justice front, I am reminded that we are not called to win. We are called to be faithful. Whatever might have gone through Jesus’ mind when he used his last breath to quote Psalm 22, we know he stayed the course. He was faithful to God’s call for justice and mercy. In that unwavering faithfulness he gathered a band of followers and they gathered a few more and so it continues through the centuries as the faithful leave a trail for other faithful followers.
This Psalm figures prominently in the crucifixion narratives of both the Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Mark and much ink has been spilled over what Jesus meant when he began to quote this particular Psalm with his final breath. Like some, I believe it was an act of faith uttered by one who had recited those words since childhood. Others think it reveals Jesus’ sense of abandonment and he never meant to utter more than the first sentence. Could be. The thing is, the first believers to hear the events of the crucifixion knew the faith claim of the entire 31 verses. The meaning is made by them and by us as we hear the story told again against the backdrop of the entire Psalm.
Indeed, Psalm 22 is the arch of justice. Despair defines much of our justice seeking work and is captured by the first two verses. Despair is often followed by the memory that we know better days when we stay the course and this is reflected in the next two verses. And so it goes, a rocking back and forth between the feeling that we seek justice against insurmountable odds followed by the reassurance that the world is moving along in God’s good time even when we can’t see it.
“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” (Psalm 22:30-31).
