Holy Week brings to us a profound mystery: the Passover of our Lord Jesus from death to life. That mystery comes to us not only as a remembrance of Jesus last week with his disciples but also as an invitation to enter into that mystery of our Lord’s Passover from death to life. Our liturgy on this Palm Sunday opens that invitation to us as we heard first Jesus journey into the city of Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and then Jesus’ journey up the hill of Calvary to his death on the cross.
Mark’s account of the crucifixion presents a very stark picture of Jesus’ death and records only one sentence spoken by Jesus from the cross: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? Those words seem, at first glance, to reflect a deep sense of abandonment by God, of God’s distance from Jesus and Jesus who suffers the inner anguish of solitude compounded by his physical torture. Jesus takes those words from the first line of Psalm 22. I invite us as a community to pray this psalm during Holy Week, to meditate on its changes in tone and mood. More importantly the liturgy invites us to enter through this psalm into Jesus’ very relationship with God. Through this psalm we can be transformed into the Christ, Crucified and Risen, who prays this psalm.
When Jesus prays this psalm, when we pray this psalm, the opening words speak of the depth of his intimacy with God. Jesus prays, and he invites us to pray, MY God. Not once, does he pray, but twice. His heart cries out: My God, My God since he speaks from his proven faith, from his deep trust, from his profound love.
But then the prayer takes a turn: why have you forsaken me? The prayer reveals a broken heart, a heart feeling forsaken, but a heart that knows its foundation is God and God alone. The psalms dares to complain to God, goads God with challenges, laments the absence of God when God is most needed.
For some of us, this psalm crosses a line. Who are we to challenge God with such boldness? How dare we express ourselves so freely, without proper restraint, showing the depth of our feeling?
Jesus, in praying the psalm, invites us to this audacity of faith. Jesus shows us the path of relating to God with that intimacy which questions God’s absences, challenges God’s distance, upbraids God’s reticence to help us, especially in our deepest need. We see that depth of faith when the psalm prays: Yet you are the Holy One, enthroned upon the praises of Israel. We, with Jesus, with the Psalmist, express our deep faith in the ancient God who has proven, time and again, to be trustworthy. Jesus shows us this path of faith for us to claim it as our own.
We all have gone through a most horrific year. During the year, some of us have experience personal tragedies and loss. Somewhere along the way, we have learned that we should silently accept these situations and never complain. Somewhere along the way, we believe that if we tell God that we are upset with things that we are rebelling against God’s will. What if we could approach God with that deep faith which gives us permission to freely express our anger about situations, to share with God our disappointments in life, to complain about the losses we suffer and the pain we endure.
Jesus in Gethsemane questioned if there might be a way for him other than the cross. When he was nailed to the cross, when he felt his life slipping away, when evil seemed to have won the day, God seemed absent from Jesus and Jesus said as much. What if we can learn from Jesus to lament our losses, to complain about our circumstances, to cry about our anguish? What if we can do all these things from a deep faith, a faith that knows God is with us, even when we do not feel God’s presence.
Jesus on the cross shows us a way, a difficult way, a deep way, a way which is both true to our hearts and true to God. Ask God for this deeper faith, a faith which is so sure of your relationship, your friendship with God that you dare to question God, to express your anger to God, to lament your deepest losses with God. May we enter into this Holy Week with this memory of Jesus’ last words, with the hope of moving to yet a deeper faith in God’s mystery, with the love of touching a God strong enough to live with us through our deepest pains.