No fair-weather faith (Psalm 22:1-21)

Many non-Christians think of religion as a crutch. ‘How wonderful that you have faith to comfort you’, they say, as if faith were a magic pill that took the pain away. The truth is though that it can be harder to endure suffering when we believe that God is loving. To the physical or emotional pain is added the theological turmoil: where is our God when it hurts? Psalm 22 is the prayer most associated with Jesus’ crucifixion, but its unforgettable cry of abandonment also finds echoes in our own experience, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (v.1). Thus, we should not dissociate this prayer from our human struggles, as if it only applied to Jesus. The point is not that the psalm describes Jesus’ suffering exclusively but that He entered our human realm so fully that our pains and hurts became His too.

It is important, however, that the cry of dereliction is the opening, not the closing line, the beginning of a struggle for faith, not its end. Unlike the naïve assumption of unbelievers, faith is forged in the crucible, it does not miraculously descend on us. Neither does trusting God exclude the possibility that we may feel abandoned and in despair. If Jesus, who supremely trusted the Father, could pray this prayer as His and go through the agony of feeling deserted, distressed over those who mocked and belittled Him, then we are allowed to feel those emotions too. And what a roller coaster-ride this prayer is! The sense of God’s absence (Ps 22:1-2) is in stark contrast to the forefathers’ positive experience (Ps 22:3-5), while isolation from others who do not understand and are antagonistic (Ps 22:6-8) makes God’s withdrawal even more hurtful. Yet, the psalmist’s trust is no fair-weather faith. Even in abandonment it cries to God as ‘my God’ and waits expectantly for deliverance. The psalmist reaches back in memory to God’s earlier care in birth and childhood, a precarious time for survival in the ancient world (Ps 22:9-10). This reminder provides the stepping stone to keep crying out to God for help (Ps 22:11, 19-21). Suffering can disorientate us to the point where we forget God’s earlier protection and the testimony of other believers, but these are the very truths that can give us strength to keep going.

Psalms typically describe suffering through two aspects: external enemies and physical effects. Those who live through persecution or exploitation can identify with the psalmist’s depiction of external enemies as vicious brutes with an insatiable appetite for destruction (Ps 22:12-13, 16).[1] Indeed, this psalm is read during the Jewish festival of Purim, a reminder of the threat of extermination Jews experienced during Persian rule (described in the Book of Esther). At the same time, we may also recognise the taunts of the enemies as our internal dialogue with ourselves and Satan’s discouragement that mock our trust in God. Difficulties and inner torment take a physical toll on the body and in Hebrew thinking there is an intrinsic connection between our physicality and our spirit so that the two cannot properly be separated. Thus, the psalm describes the effects of suffering in terms of physical pain as well (Ps 22:14-15, 17).

While the specifics in the psalm resonate with Jesus’ pain on the cross, it should be noted that this kind of language is primarily poetic, not a scientific description. Once again, reading the psalm as both our experience and Jesus’ gives us hope. Jesus knew abandonment, persecution and physical pain in life and in death. While even godly people are not sinless and may justly experience the pain of separation from God at times, Jesus’ distress is the result of bearing the consequences of our sin. He experienced our suffering, emotional, mental, physical, from stresses externally to those within. Because He felt utterly abandoned, He shares our abandonment and by doing so, our loneliness is never complete because He is there in it with us. As our cry rises to God, it merges with His cry, so that His triumph may become ours in the end.

[1] Dogs in the ancient world were not domesticated pets but scavenging animals.

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