Psalm 22 and Christ’s fulfillment of the Scriptures

Are you aware of one of the more intriguing questions in scripture? Maybe you think it might be the poignant heart rending opening verse in Psalm 22 ”My God, My God why have you forsaken me?”

Those words give us much food for thought but the question I’m thinking of concerns scripture itself! Consider this scene just as our Lord was about to undergo His Passion: Peter has just tried to defend Jesus, from those seeking to arrest him after Judas’ betrayal, by cutting off the ear of the High Priest’s servant Malchus.

And what is Jesus’ response? "Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels? But how then should the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it [His Passion] must be so?" (Matt 26:52-54) (Emphasis added).

Peter’s bold swashbuckling move is recorded in all four Gospels (although he is only named in John’s account). But Jesus is quick to remind him of the necessity of the events now about to unfold culminating in His horrible crucifixion and death at Calvary. These are an essential part of the Divine plan to redeem sinful humanity for our salvation!

Fascinating isn’t it? How Jesus, as the Word made flesh (John 1:14) is obedient unto death (Phil 2:8) to the Divinely inspired words in the Old Testament from such illustrious figures as King David in the psalms, and the prophet Isaiah.

Speaking of that great prophet, we can see a striking illustration of the power of the Word of God in this passage from his book: “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I intend, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” (Emphasis added) (Is 55:10-11).

These Divine words of inspiration have a special resonance in that from Jesus’ obedience to such words as these we can indeed prosper in His having redeemed us for our salvation!

Now for a more prominent example of the Word made flesh being obedient to His own word in Scripture, we need look no further than at one of what we know as the Seven Last Words (sayings actually) that are staples of many Good Friday reflections.

Consider these opening words from King David’s Psalm 22 mentioned earlier as we find them quoted in the Gospels (21 in the original Latin and Greek Septuagnant and Latin Vulgate (and the Douay-Rheims Bible versions): “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, 'Eli, Eli, la'ma sabach'-tha'ni?' that is, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'" (Matt 27:46; this is also found in Mark 15:34).

Jesus uttered these words in the horrible climax of His Passion in those agonizingly painful moments in His crucifixion when He hung on a cross between two thieves wounded literally from head to toe.

It’s as if He did not want to spare Himself even one bit of pain offered up to His Heavenly Father on behalf of wretched sinful humanity for our salvation while showing us all the most striking example of humility and loving obedience to the Divine Will.

He suffered as any of us certainly would in his human nature to experience Hellish pain for a Heavenly cause. Still Jesus cried out to His Heavenly Father who through the merits of His Passion, Death and Resurrection would become Our Father as well!

When we look at a crucifix, which by the way, doesn’t show just how battered and bruised Jesus actually was at Calvary, we see Our Lord bonding with us in His human nature knowing fully well how depraved that nature could be!

It’s a moving depiction of both His love for us sinners (in undergoing such a savage humiliation on our behalf) and His hatred for sin itself! And for a brief desolate moment He allowed Himself to experience what we all do at one time or another: calling out to God, in this case His Heavenly Father, without getting an immediate, loving, reassuring response!

It’s important to add here that Psalm 22 does end on a triumphant note of praise and trust that God will help carry the Psalmist through this extraordinarily brutal experience. In this Psalm we see a Good Friday (verses 1-21) turn into an Easter Sunday (verses 22-31) in a sense.

Let’s consider this transformation from the “Good Friday” aspect as recorded in scripture. From Psalm 22 we read after that memorable first line mentioned earlier, several other pertinent lines that resonate quite well with those found in Matthew’s Gospel, (given here as a comparison):

Consider these first, from Psalm 22:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?... All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they wag their heads; He committed his cause to the LORD; let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (Ps 22:1, 7-8).

And then, we have these lines from Matthew’s Gospel, by comparison:

And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, "You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross." So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying,"He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he said, 'I am the Son of God' " (Matt 27:39-43).

As a quick aside, as we all know, Jesus did come down from the Cross, but not in the manner in which those who jeered at him expected. Rather, He was taken down quite tenderly upon His death.

But after His Resurrection, for a subsequent 40 days, He presented Himself alive “by many proofs” according to St. Luke in Chapter 1 verse 3 of the Book of Acts. So we see that Christ did emerge alive and well in his own Divine Will in His own time!

But how many of the top echelon of the religious leadership then believed in him? Not many, as we see much resistance still even to Jesus’ very Name in the Book of Acts.

We also have this detail in Psalm 22, verse 16, that, while not specifically mentioned as such in the Gospels, well describes the hideous brutality of a Roman Crucifixion which all four evangelists mention only by saying He was crucified. “They have pierced my hands and feet."

And finally we have this detail, found in verse 18 of Psalm 22, which is also found in all four Gospels: “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.”

It is St. John, in this case in his Gospel, who points out this particular scriptural antecedent with a little more detail than that found in the other three accounts: "When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and made four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was without seam, woven from top to bottom; so they said to one another, 'Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.' This was to fulfill the Scripture, 'They parted my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.'” (John 19:23-24).

Now for the Easter Sunday message of hope in all of this, we read from lines 22-24 of Psalm 22 where the psalmist proclaims “I will tell of your name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you sons of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you sons of Israel! For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; and he has not hidden his face from him.”

And what’s more, we read as a great harbinger of Jesus’ redemption for all of us, the “light of revelation to the Gentiles” as the devout Simeon called Him in Luke’s Gospel 2:32, “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.” (Ps 22:27-28).

We see a note of triumph, indeed, in another of the Seven Last Words of Jesus on the Cross as His suffering at Calvary comes to completion with His death. Remember here that in dying He actually conquered death and His resurrection was manifest in two short days! He cried out right before passing away “Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit!” (Luke 23:46).

As we read further, in the Ignatius Study Bible footnotes, "Thus Jesus does not consider his Passion meaningless or a mark of failure; still less does he succumb to a sin of despair. Rather, he "trusts in God" (Matt 27:43) and surrenders his spirit to the Father (Lk 23:46). Like the innocent sufferer of Ps 22, he is confident that God will turn his misery into victory (cf. Lk 23:43)."

And finally we have these inspiring words on the subject of the first line of Psalm 22 from the private revelations of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich from her book The Dolorous Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ:

It was towards three o’clock when he cried out in a loud voice, ‘Eloi, Eloi, lamma sabacthani?’ ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ The cry which He allowed to pass His lips in the height of his agony was intended not only to show the excess of the sufferings He was then enduring, but likewise to encourage all afflicted souls who acknowledge God as their Father to lay their sorrows with filial confidence at his feet.

Indeed, we see in both the Gospels and in Psalm 22, among others, the importance of trusting in God to see us through our own Good Fridays to get us to the Easter Sunday of Eternal Life with Him in heaven, won for us by His victory over death on the cross at Calvary!

May he see each one of us, including you and me among the Blessed souls for whom his momentous sacrifice there was well worth it!

God Bless,

Christopher Castagnoli
FROM OURCATHOLICPRAYERS.COM