Thought For The Week 25 February 2024

The Psalm reading for today is the last third of Psalm 22. They are words of expectant hope and praise, ending with the triumphant words “He has done it!”. They sketch out a picture for us of not just a community at one with God, but a restored and renewed humanity, where everyone has enough and  honours God as Sovereign. It reminds me of the verse from the Lord’s Prayer: “Your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” It is a description of the world as God longs it to be, and as it is promised to be one day.

Reading these verses in isolation like we are today it is easy to miss that the words of the first two-thirds of this Psalm are raw, unrestrained, anguished lament. The opening line “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was the cry on Jesus’ lips on the cross. The New Testament authors also see the suffering of Christ through this Psalm. Jesus likely knew the Psalms well. In his hours of pain and anguish on the cross, the words of the Psalm gave voice to his pain. But Jesus also knew how Psalm 22 ended with this glorious picture of God’s plan for his creation. In John’s Gospel, Jesus’ final words “It is finished” seem to me to correspond with Psalm 22’s “He has done it!”.

In Christ’s ministry, death and resurrection, all things, are being drawn to and reconciled to God. In this season of Lent, though we live between the time when Christ ‘did it all’ and when God’s Kingdom is fully realised, we are invited to contemplate and pray for the glorious hopeful future that is ours through the costly gift of grace given freely to all.

Luke