My God

A poetic meditation on Psalm 22 for Good Friday...

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Was it a cry of dereliction?
or a grasping for hope?

If nothing else
it was
a quotation from Psalm 22

David voiced your selfsame anguish
hundreds of years before
you experienced it
a thousand years before
you took on flesh
our human flesh
and died in that flesh
on a rough-hewn cross

But the psalm does not end
where you began
It does not end
in despair

The psalm begins with restlessness
but soon the psalmist remembers
the One enthroned
on the praises of Israel

In this God
the psalmist says
our ancestors placed their trust

And what was the result?
Deliverance
Salvation…
Not shame

Yet you must have felt
your humanity stripped away
You must have felt
not like a man
rather
like a worm
Scorned
Despised
Mocked
Humiliated
Dying in seeming defeat
amidst insults hurled
like sharpened arrows
deflating every
last
balloon
of hope

They say that in the moments before death
one’s life flashes before one’s eyes
And so
did you remember
how your life began
brought out of the womb
by your God
learning to trust him
at your mother’s breast?

Is that why you called out
to that same God
once again?

Not just any God
not Moloch
not Asherah
not Baal
not Chemosh
but Yahweh
my God!

Did you feel on the cross
as you once did
in the wilderness
surrounded by animals
your bones out of joint
your mouth parched
your heart melting
as you lay down
in the dust of death?

But on Golgotha
it was not
wild animals
surrounding you

It was soldiers
waiting with impatience
for your very last breath
They pierced your hands and feet
They divided your clothes
leaving you to hang
naked
alone

They cast lots
to see who would get
your robe
the last vestige
of your humanity

But you turned your eyes
from all that emptiness
back to the fullness
you had always known
with your Abba

Did you mumble a prayer?
Be not far away
come quickly
deliver
rescue
save?

Did you promise your God
that you would declare
his name
to your people?

Did a vision pass
before your eyes
of all the ends of the earth
remembering and turning,
of all the families of the nations
bowing down and worshipping?
A vision of future generations
being told about you
and proclaiming
your righteousness
to a people yet unborn
declaring your deeds
for all to hear?

And so
we pray
to you
on this Good Friday
a day that is good for us
only because
it was bad for you

We pray saying…
Our God
our God
thank you
for feeling forsaken
for us
so that we need …
never…
feel…
forsaken
Not now
not ever…
Amen.

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