Читать книгу The Psalms - Herbert O'Driscoll - Страница 29

Psalm 22

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? …

Yet you are the Holy One …

kingship belongs to the Lord.

every great artist’s collection includes those “giants” of creation that stand above the rest. For Shakespeare it may be Hamlet; for Michelangelo, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Among the psalms, this song stands out. There are few evocations of human desolation equal to it.

For a Christian, the first line pierces deeply because we hear it also from the lips of our Lord on the cross. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Some maintain that Jesus may have been turning to this psalm to find some meaning in the agony of crucifixion. But the psalm is not about the crucifixion of our Lord.

The psalmist is writing from a personal agony. Obviously, it has been going on for some time. “I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well, but I find no rest.” He tries the devices we all know in suffering. God has helped in the past; therefore, the same help should be extended in the present. “Our forefathers … trusted, and you delivered them.”

For a moment this thought gives the psalmist some relief, but then there sweeps over him the contempt and dismissal he receives from others. “All who see me laugh me to scorn.” A most cruel cost of great suffering is the fear that we are utterly worthless and have become of no consequence, even to friends. “I am a worm and no man, scorned by all.”

Once again there is an effort to regain control over his feelings. After all, God is his creator. Surely this suffering is of concern to the creator of his body and soul! “You are he who took me out of the womb.” But his effort at control is also swept away in a sudden flood of misery. “I am poured out like water … my bones are out of joint; my heart within my breast is melting … My mouth is dried … dogs close me in … evildoers circle around me.”

Promises are made—the bargaining with God we all know. “I will declare your name … in the midst of the congregation I will praise you … I will perform my vows.”

Now it seems as if the sufferer has succeeded in handing the pain over to greater hands. “Kingship belongs to the Lord.” We may be hearing the voice of someone who is preparing for final surrender. “To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down.” But in the surrender, we receive a vision of hope. “My soul shall live for him.”

In these lines we have been given a sublime expression of the determination of the human spirit to find in God meaning and hope in human suffering. May we also discover this grace.

Bring to mind the suffering of people in some area of the world, in your society. Bring to mind the suffering of a friend, your own suffering. Ask God to be with those who suffer and to give them understanding and comfort, healing and grace.