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

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It always kind of bothered me why Jesus cried these words on the cross. I just listened to a CD by Fr. Jude Winkler and he pointed out that Jesus was reciting Psalm 22. Wow!

Psalm 22
1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.

2O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;

And by night, but I have no rest.

3Yet You are holy,

O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

4In You our fathers trusted;

They trusted and You delivered them.

5To You they cried out and were delivered;

In You they trusted and were not disappointed.

6But I am a worm and not a man,

A reproach of men and despised by the people.

7All who see me sneer at me;

They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,

8"Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him;

Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him."

9Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb;

You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.

10Upon You I was cast from birth;

You have been my God from my mother’s womb.

11Be not far from me, for trouble is near;

For there is (S)none to help.

12Many bulls have surrounded me;

Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.

13They open wide their mouth at me,

As a ravening and a roaring lion.

14I am poured out like water,

And all my bones are out of joint;

My heart is like wax;

It is melted within me.

15My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;

And You lay me in the dust of death.

16For dogs have surrounded me;

A band of evildoers has encompassed me;

They pierced my hands and my feet.

17I can count all my bones.

They look, they stare at me;

18They divide my garments among them,

And for my clothing they cast lots.

19But You, O LORD, be not far off;

O You my help, hasten to my assistance.

20Deliver my soul from the sword,

My only life from the power of the dog.

21Save me from the lion’s mouth;

From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me.

22I will tell of Your name to my brethren;

In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.

23You who fear the LORD, praise Him;

All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him,

And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel.

24For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;

Nor has He hidden His face from him;

But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.

25From You comes my praise in the great assembly;

I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him.

26The afflicted will eat and be satisfied;

Those who seek Him will praise the LORD

Let your heart live forever!

27All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD,

And all the families of the nations will worship before You.

28For the kingdom is the LORD’S

And He rules over the nations.

29All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship,

All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him,

Even he who cannot keep his soul alive.

30Posterity will serve Him;

It will be told of the Lord to the coming generation.

31They will come and will declare His righteousness

To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.
 
I’ve often thought that there ought to be a way to broadcast all these little objections/concerns about the faith to all the world in one fell swoop so that all people everywhere will know what they mean. Until that day, we will have to depend on people like Fr. Winkler (as well as forums like this one) to spread the word to as many as possible.

What I find so amazing is that people will automatically form a doubt(s) about the faith with so little information. I mean, one misunderstood verse from the Gospels is hardly enough to lose one’s faith over, not that that describes you, dear Luv_2b_anEM.

I am waiting for the day when someone will say, “This verse must mean something quite wonderful, but I don’t understand it, what does it mean?” (Which is no doubt your intention, L2bEM 🙂 ), so I guess that day has come, at last! 😃

We’ve all been too influenced by our culture that doubts everything first and believes only when things have been “proven” to us.
 
Christ died for our sins. Christ paid the price for our sins in our place. protestants call this the biblical doctrine of substitutionary atonement. I haven’t run across a label for the Catholic form of this doctrine.

Christ’s words are not just a quotation from the Psalm, which means “song” as I understand it. It’s hard to imagine myself in that situation, singing any song whatsoever. Christ wasn’t singing either.

Jesus is not demonstrating his despair over this fate. He was showing us what we deserve for our sins. Scripture describes someone who is saved as being saved “barely.” It also pictures a saved person as a “brand” pulled from the fire – a picture of a stick that was almost consumed by a fire, but pulled out at the last instant before total consummation.

Our empathy for Jesus should translate into concern for the salvation of sinners in the world around us.

We’ve all heard the story in the gospel about the rich man and the beggar Lazarus at his gate, begging for crumbs.

Consider Jesus’ depiction of eternal damnation (NAB, Luke 16)

16:22 When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried,
16:23 and from the netherworld, * where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off ** and Lazarus at his side.
16:24 And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames**.’
16:25 Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
16:26 Moreover, **between us and you a great chasm ** is established **to prevent anyone from crossing ** who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’
16:27 He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house,
16:28 for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’
16:29 But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’
16:30 * He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
16:31 Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’"
 
Love_2B_an_EM:
It always kind of bothered me why Jesus cried these words on the cross. I just listened to a CD by Fr. Jude Winkler and he pointed out that Jesus was reciting Psalm 22. Wow!
Click to expand...
Fr. Larry Richards does a night devoted to Confession and the Passion in his parish mission. He talked about this in that talk. I do not remember exactly what he said about it, I will have to watch the tape tonite to find out. I think that it had something to do with Jesus seeing all of our sins as he was hanging on the cross, everyone’s sins, all of them, all at once, He could see them and He felt lost and alone, forsaken.

Again, Fr. Larry puts it more eloquently than I can. If I remember (which may be the hard part) I will watch that tape and post what he said.

Sorry, I cannot recall it all right now.
 
Thanks, I’d love to hear what Fr Richards talked about.

Also, I apologize, this topic was already discussed last November
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=86426&highlight=psalm+22

One interesting post from that thread was
"One must also keep in mind the Jewish tradition of the Rabbi saying the first words of a psalm and the congregation joined into finish the prayer.

Now go back and read that Psalm in light of all the people who condemned Jesus to death knowing that the Jewish response would be to join in and recite that Psalm. While the crowd might not have gotten the message, I think the Pharisees did."
 
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Della:
What I find so amazing is that people will automatically form a doubt(s) about the faith with so little information. I mean, one misunderstood verse from the Gospels is hardly enough to lose one’s faith over, not that that describes you, dear Luv_2b_anEM.
Click to expand...
Please explain. How can this verse be misunderstood?
 
Love_2B_an_EM:
Thanks, I’d love to hear what Fr Richards talked about.

Also, I apologize, this topic was already discussed last November
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=86426&highlight=psalm+22

One interesting post from that thread was
"One must also keep in mind the Jewish tradition of the Rabbi saying the first words of a psalm and the congregation joined into finish the prayer.

Now go back and read that Psalm in light of all the people who condemned Jesus to death knowing that the Jewish response would be to join in and recite that Psalm. While the crowd might not have gotten the message, I think the Pharisees did."
Click to expand...
I have often reflected that the those Jews who were near enough to hear Jesus say these words must have got chills down their spine. :eek:
 
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BayCityRickL:
Christ died for our sins. Christ paid the price for our sins in our place. protestants call this the biblical doctrine of substitutionary atonement. I haven’t run across a label for the Catholic form of this doctrine.

Christ’s words are not just a quotation from the Psalm, which means “song” as I understand it. It’s hard to imagine myself in that situation, singing any song whatsoever. Christ wasn’t singing either.

Jesus is not demonstrating his despair over this fate. He was showing us what we deserve for our sins. Scripture describes someone who is saved as being saved “barely.” It also pictures a saved person as a “brand” pulled from the fire – a picture of a stick that was almost consumed by a fire, but pulled out at the last instant before total consummation.

Our empathy for Jesus should translate into concern for the salvation of sinners in the world around us.

We’ve all heard the story in the gospel about the rich man and the beggar Lazarus at his gate, begging for crumbs.

Consider Jesus’ depiction of eternal damnation (NAB, Luke 16)

16:22 When the poor man died, he was carried away by angels to the bosom of Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried,
16:23 and from the netherworld, * where he was in torment, he raised his eyes and saw Abraham far off ** and Lazarus at his side.
16:24 And he cried out, 'Father Abraham, have pity on me. Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering torment in these flames**.’
16:25 Abraham replied, ‘My child, remember that you received what was good during your lifetime while Lazarus likewise received what was bad; but now he is comforted here, whereas you are tormented.
16:26 Moreover, **between us and you a great chasm ** is established **to prevent anyone from crossing ** who might wish to go from our side to yours or from your side to ours.’
16:27 He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, send him to my father’s house,
16:28 for I have five brothers, so that he may warn them, lest they too come to this place of torment.’
16:29 But Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets. Let them listen to them.’
16:30 * He said, ‘Oh no, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’
16:31 Then Abraham said, ‘If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded if someone should rise from the dead.’"
Click to expand...
Throughout the old testament there are prophesies of Jesus’s advent and life. Psalm 22 is certainly one of those. In the time of Jesus when a person wanted to reference a certain passage of scripture, they did not have chapter and verse break downs. So they recited the first sentence of that passage. Think about it. Why did right after Jesus says this does the gospel writer inform us that the Jews thought He was calling to Elijah? Because he was trying to show why the Jews did not understand the Christ was referencing that psalm.
Another thought is that at the end of any teaching a person usually ends with a summary. Is it too outlandish a thought that Jesus points to this passage as the summary. Because right after this He says it is consumated.
Jesus fulfillment of prophesies is cruicial to our faith. He alone of all the people to exist was fortold. He alone was known through prophesy to people who lived before Him. 100 years ago no one ever conceived of us, in fact an atom had more worth then than we did. Mohammed was not prophesied about neither was Buddah. Prophesies are crucial and it is not wise to try and pass them off as a coincidence.
 
Love_2B_an_EM:
"One must also keep in mind the Jewish tradition of the Rabbi saying the first words of a psalm and the congregation joined into finish the prayer.

Now go back and read that Psalm in light of all the people who condemned Jesus to death knowing that the Jewish response would be to join in and recite that Psalm. While the crowd might not have gotten the message, I think the Pharisees did."
Click to expand...
And then consider what strength and hope it gave to John, Mary, and all the other people who were wondering how this could happen to Jesus!

I love that Psalm!!!

Notworthy
 
Dodd wrote a book about quotations in the New Testament, but I can’t remember its title.
 
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Angainor:
Please explain. How can this verse be misunderstood?
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Just take a look at some of the threads on Islam. Those specific verses are used to “prove” that Jesus cannot be God, the 2nd person of the Trinity.
 
Father Leo Lefebure – Is a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago and an associate professor of theology at Fordham University.

There are different ways of reading “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” One way is that it is literally a cry of despair. On that it is literally a cry of despair. On that model for Christians, Jesus as God himself is entering into the worst depth of human suffering. This means that God knows what it’s like to feel abandoned by God. This also means a divine identification with all the victims of suffering throughout history, with all those who have in their suffering felt a sense of God-forsakenness, of feeling that God is not there.

But we should also remember that this cry of Jesus quotes Psalm 22. It was a custom in Judaism at the time that if one person said the psalm, the rest of the people would conclude it. This is like when a Catholic says, “Our Father,” and everybody else joins in. So, given that the Twenty-second Psalm begins with this cry of despair but moves through it and concludes with a sense of God’s deliverance, there is a message of suffering and transformation that we all are invited to repeat following the model of Jesus.

Taken from Transforming Suffering
Edited by Donald Mitchell and James Wiseman, O.S.B
 
To me, utterances like Jesus’ “My God, My God…” show the historical truth of the New Testament. If it were not true, the writers would not have included this, as it shows Jesus doubting and hurting. But, as we learn, the meaning is so much deeper, and shows His complete humanity. If He were not completely human, He could not have been the Son of God. That link used to bother me too, but now it brings me closer to Jesus, because He showed us He knows precisely what it is like to feel alone and abandoned. In fact, I don’t really know what it feels like, compared to how He felt it.
 
But…that Psalm didn’t exist prior to Jesus. So it was still His own lament.
 
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Liberalsaved:
But…that Psalm didn’t exist prior to Jesus. So it was still His own lament.
Click to expand...
What do you mean?

Are you saying it wasn’t already one of the psalms the Jews sang?

Where is the evidence for that?
 
Eileen T:
What do you mean?

Are you saying it wasn’t already one of the psalms the Jews sang?

Where is the evidence for that?
Click to expand...
Was it? I may have read wrong.

Dang. That was a powerful moment. I almost hate to think Jesus was reciting something. It was the best indicator in the Bible of his link with humanity, the idea that he would temporarily have doubt the way we do. 😦
 
I think it is powerful, that even though He was suffering on the Cross, He was still able to feed us, to teach us!

Notworthy
 
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NotWorthy:
I think it is powerful, that even though He was suffering on the Cross, He was still able to feed us, to teach us!

Notworthy
Click to expand...
Wow thanks for such a powerful thought that you invoked. He still feeds us from the cross not only in His words but through the Euchrist.
 
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