Read Matthew 27
It’s been said that “Jesus is God’s psalm for the world.” This is why we love the Psalms so much, pray the Psalms, read, recite and memorize the Psalms. Every one of them was written before Jesus ever took an incarnate breath, yet His character drips from them. We could say that we pray Jesus when we pray the Psalms.
When we read the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want…even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me.” Who leads us through the valley? Who eases our fears, but Jesus?
But it’s not so comforting to see Jesus in the 22nd Psalm, though it is Jesus we see, and clearly. From the cross, Jesus utters the unthinkable opening line from that gut-wrenching psalm, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
We’ve studied the Trinity, the mystery of the God who exists and has always existed as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We confess and believe that Jesus has just as much claim to the title “God,” as the Father or the Spirit, and yet we hear Jesus uttering this God forsaken plea. It’s too much for us to wrap our minds around that the One who abandons and the One who is abandoned is God.
The One who abandons and the one who is abandoned is God.
This sounds like utter nonsense. We’d like to resolve this tension, give God His armies to reign like a proper king, but that would rob Jesus of His authority. To resolve the tension is to confess a God other than the one we see in the face of Jesus on the cross.
Continued tomorrow…