Today's Daily Lesson comes from Psalm 22 verse 1:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? *
and are so far from my cry
and from the words of my distress?
Today is Good Friday, a solemn day in the life of the church. It is a day of reflection, and remembrance, and observation of the events that killed Jesus.
The Jewish authorities were disturbed by Jesus' revolutionary message.
The Romans saw him as a rabble rouser and bandit -- someone who threatened the Pax Romana. They saw him as a criminal.
The people were largely for him -- that's why he had to be arrested and tried at night when there were no crowds.
And by the the time he was turned over to the Romans there was nothing the crowds could do but weep, and wail, and protest in anger, or flee.
He was crucified.
An autopsy would have found multiple contusions, and abrasions, but the official cause of death recorded would have been asphyxiation. The cross was designed to torture, slowly sapping the energy of its victim minute by minute and hour by hour.
When Jesus died the Romans were actually surprised the suffering was so short. They had done their jobs too well. He couldn't breathe.
The Psalm today is a cry of abandonment. A cry and plea for God's help. "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" The were some of Jesus' last words.
If we had heard those words we might have wondered if in his agony Jesus had abandoned God. But no; it is a psalm. It is a cry. It is a prayer. Yes, "Why have you forsaken me?" But still, "My God, my God."
And what of God? And where?
God was not distant. God was near. God was suffering with Jesus. God was in Jesus. God came near to suffer in absolute solidarity with the crucified one.
And that is where God still can be found. Amongst the suffering. Amongst the betrayed. With the criminals. In those who can't breathe.
The old hymn says:
"Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble"
Every time for me. Every single time.
Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.
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