Let us draw near to the cross on this Good Friday, keep vigil, contemplate the Lord’s passion, consider his agony of spirit and physical torture. Let us not fall asleep as the three did in Gethsemane, nor abandon him as the rest did by the end.
When we ponder his last moments, just before the final candle is extinguished, we hear once again the agonizing scream of abandonment as Jesus uttered the first verse of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” But we mustn’t stop at the first verse but read on assuming Jesus had the entire psalm on his mind as he reached the pinnacle of his suffering and lowest point of humiliation.
Let’s prayerfully meditate on this psalm along with Jesus this Good Friday.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?
7 All who see me laugh me to scorn;
they curl their lips and wag their heads, saying,
8 “He trusted in the Lord; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, if he delights in him.”
14 I am poured out like water;
all my bones are out of joint;
my heart within my breast is melting wax.
15 My mouth is dried out like a pot-sherd;
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.
16 Packs of dogs close me in,
and gangs of evildoers circle around me;
they pierce my hands and my feet;
I can count all my bones.
17 They stare and gloat over me;
they divide my garments among them;
they cast lots for my clothing.
18 Be not far away, O Lord;
you are my strength; hasten to help me.
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.
27 For kingship belongs to the Lord;
he rules over the nations.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him;
they shall be known as the Lord‘s for ever.
30 They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn
the saving deeds that he has done.
You see, just like the V-shaped pattern of the Christ Hymn (Phil 2:6-11), so Psalm 22 moves from the deepest valley of shame and scorn, forsakenness and suffering to the triumphal exaltation of God and his kingly rule. As surely as he prayed, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken,” so he trusted that through his self-sacrifice the reign of God’s Kingdom was being established, and “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall bow before him” (v. 26). Or, as Paul put it:
“He humbled himself
by becoming obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place” (Phil 2:8-9).
The suffering of Good Friday isn’t the end of the story, but rather the exaltation of the world’s true king and the birth of the church following Easter that shall “make known to a people yet unborn [that’s you and me] the saving deeds that he has done” (v. 30). It’s all there on his mind, as he breathes his last, the earthquakes and darkness fills the land.
So, we extinguish the final candle and face the silent darkness tonight with the assurance that on the third day the bright light of the risen Son shall flood the earth, and usher in the first day of his New Creation Reign. To God be the glory!
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Jeremy L. Berg 