According to one Bible scholar, Ellen Davies, Psalm 22 of the Bible is an individual lament among many, and “like a blues song, they speak a vividly metaphorical language that is intensely personal and yet not private. It is because of their repeatability as responses of faith to ordinary human experience that the Psalms continue to serve as the single most important resource.” Psalm 22 is especially famous because of its opening line “of abandonment” reiterated a thousand years later by Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Hence, this opening line sews our two Testaments together with our two themes of “abandonment” and “faith.”
More pertinent to my discussion here is an answer to the “why” raised in the opening line of Psalm 22 by King David, and later reiterated by Jesus on the cross as documented in Mark 15:34. In coming up with a meaningful answer to this “why,” I hope to make some sense of the doctrinal confusion caused by interpreters who have imposed a meaning on it, now so entrenched in our Christian tradition. For instance, in The Four Gospels, V.K. Robbins, argues that, “Interpreters who have tried to turn this cry into a positive statement have imposed the rhetoric of Psalm 22 on the rhetoric of Markan discourse. Interpreters are right that Psalm 22 contains a rhetoric of confidence, trust, and hope. It is improper, however, to let this rhetoric [of faith] silence the rhetoric of abandonment displayed in Mark” (1179). Hence, according to Robbins we should follow this traditional interpretation because it is “improper” that the “faith” expressed in Ps. 22 should “silence” the doctrine of abandonment in Mark.
According to this “rhetoric of abandonment,” Jesus was forsaken on the cross because the messiah bore the sins of the world, and therefore God could not look upon him. Likewise, Robbins’s theology is consistent with this “rhetoric” because Robbins believes God did in fact abandoned Jesus on the cross. “To put this another way, the sequence of Mk 15 inverts the sequence of Ps 22, and with this inversion comes a subversion of its rhetoric. The sufferer in the psalm expresses hope to the end; Jesus on the cross expresses the agony of abandonment by everyone including God” (1179). Hence, according to this “subversion,” “everyone including God” has forsaken Jesus, and apparently, this abandonment has happened because of all the sins Jesus bore. However, in John chapter 19 (vs.25-26), the apostle informs us that the mother of Jesus was there, John was there, Mary Magdalene was there, along with the “wife of Clopas.” If these people were there with Jesus, why not God too?
Contrary to popular church doctrine, Jesus’s reiteration of the opening line of Psalm 22 teaches us that Jesus verbalized it on the cross as a witness of hope, not of abandonment. Moreover, Jesus’s existential “Why have you forsaken me?” teaches us that God withdrew His presence temporarily from Jesus in order for us all to learn how Jesus’s faith sustained him until God’s presence was restored. Another psalm supports my contention. “Truly the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him, on those who hope in his steadfast love, to deliver their soul from death…” ( Psalm 33: 18-19). In addition, Jesus’s fearful moment becomes a symbolic dramatization of what we all will face one day—death—separation, and if our faith has “hopefully” grown abundantly—restoration. For the apostle informs us in 2 Thessalonians, “We must always give thanks to God for you…because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.” (verse 3; italics added)
The symbolic nature of the opening line in Psalm 22— that Jesus alludes to on the cross—encourages us to understand more seriously the importance of Hebrew poetry in two ways. First, a symbolic understanding of the “why” helps to comprehend his crucifixion on a literal and on a figurative level; therefore this symbolic understanding links unites the two themes of “abandonment” and “faith” from the two Testaments. Yet, in no way does a symbolic understanding of Hebrew poetry in the Bible undermine its historical value. For, another Biblical scholar, Davis, states, “The historical character of the symbol [cross] is not lost when it is thus extended or even transformed. A poetic approach urges that a Christian theology of must take full account of the process of resymbolization.” Consequently, this process of resymbolization allows us to consider the symbolic significance of his cry on multiple levels. For instance, Jesus’s sacrifice is a symbolic act (on one level) for all humanity, but his individual death (on another level) shows each one of us that one day — we all will face death—separation, and restoration — if our faith will sustain us.
In order to understand the psalms adequately, we most understand the literary nature of them too, otherwise, our neglect is “subversion.” According to another Biblical scholar, Stuart Chalmers, this “subversion” prevails in the church today because an adequate answer is too difficult to accept. For the “image of a testing God will be not be that of a loving Father training his child, but rather a bully who stretches you to see when you will snap.” Hence, we may have rid ourselves of a view of the “bully” God, but in doing so, we have accepted a subversive doctrine of a God who looks away from us when we sin.
Bibliography:
Chalmers, Stuart P. “‘My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?’ The Christian in the Face of Pain.” Scottish Journal of Healthcare Chaplaincy 3.1 (2000): 3-8.
Davis, Ellen F. “Exploding the Limits: Form and Function in Psalm 22.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 53 (1992): 93-105.
Robbins, V.K. “The Reversed Contextualization of Psalm 22 in the Markan Crucifixion: A Social-Rhetorical Analysis.” In The Four Gospels, edited by F.Van Segbroeck, C.M. Tuckett, G. Van Belle, and J. Verheyden. Leuven University Press, 1992.
Gilbert McInnis is completing his master’s degree in Divinity through Queen’s College, Memorial University, and currently is an assistant professor and the co-ordinator of the writing centre for the University College of the North, Thompson. His forthcoming book “Kurt Vonnegut: Myth and Science in a Postmodern World” will be released in the spring by Peter Lang Inc. See his Amazon Author’s website for more works by him.
