People of God, we will be journeying this Lenten Season through the Psalter. And this morning we come to Psalm 22. This is a psalm generally associated with the crucifixion of our Lord. The words of David in verse one are echoed by Jesus at the cross when he cried: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” This is something we must not overlook: that in the time of most turmoil, our Lord could think of nothing else, but to utter the expression of the psalmist. Of the thirteen Old Testament references made by our Lord in the Passion Week, nine of them came from the psalms. And of these nine, five of them come from our passage in Psalm 22.[1] Psalm 22 is a Lenten Psalm. It points us to the death of our Lord. We have made this point before, and it is well worth saying it again: when the New Testament points us to an Old Covenant verse, they are not isolating that verse, rather they are pointing to the entire passage. So, by uttering “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me,” Jesus is saying that all of Psalm 22 speaks of his suffering; all of it manifests his agony and his triumph. The Psalm and the Passion story come together. Psalm 22 “invites us also to undertake to understand Jesus in terms of the psalm, that is, to view him through the form and language of this prayer.”[2] Continue reading “Second Sunday in Lent: Psalm 22:23-31”
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