Reading the Psalms again today (little midrashing for you today!), as I often do, as they seem like the center (and therefore centering parts of the Book) and most honest, or at least human-direct raw parts of the book….i like reading the painful ones the most! The, life sucks, and yet parts….
I love the parts of any song where the rawness of the author meets, and comes in friction with the naked Love from Above! That’s the gospel to me–where our felt abandonment meets His Belovedness spoken over us. The embarrassment of being loved–that’s our place of hearing our names. In clear view, you!!!!
We are those meant to get raw to know! I’m abandoned and loved. Put those in the same room, and you’ll have your gospel wallpaper.
Why am I forsaken, abandoned left alone, is still the first question. Why did no one cover me? Why was I forsaken abused not seen, neglected, and yet… I feel thrust out into nothing, and yet….why am I loved still. That’s the basic meditation of the song. Jesus embodied that human existential experience, and over came it by dialoguing at the last minute. Plus, He interpreted that passage for His Jewish friends! This is what that passage looks like incarnated or embodied. He always did that. Taking the Torah truths and ingesting them into physical spiritual symbols! How to live the Law, or embody it.
The prophetic imagination scraping and wrestling with Reality. Things are terrible and yet, somehow Love breaks through into and exactly where my most pain is. How is that? Ok, You are still there. I’m loved despite…
Psalm 22 teaches us if nothing else—we are allowed to complain and lament our way into communion.
It’s never about denial of pain, but rather saying the “and yet”, the and still I will praise, i will choose to trust, even while in pain! That was certainly David’s spirituality, but since Jesus quoted it on the Cross, it’s suggested it should also be ours.
The “and yet” i will praise Him part is the key.
My life sucks, and yet…i am being falsely accused, and yet. I’m a worm, and yet. I’m being destroyed and misunderstood, falsely accused and yet…suffering is the birthplace of trust. Don’t waste your trials, as they say.
This is why Jesus quoted this passage on the Cross. He was the question. He embodied it! And the way to answer it, as always.
He was as always embodying the teaching of how to suffer into formation, to suffer with and towards wholeness for all! That’s the blues, and that’s the gospel. The implied “and yet” as we suffer is the right inner orientation.
Suffering is a way to know, if we stay with Him in it. That is the One intimately acquainted with all our particular griefs. Every situation, is a potential tabernacle as my mentor put it. Finding Joy in our unique sufferings, seems like the Way to me. Nice Winter mediation today, at least.
Get raw and naked, transparently emotionally and vulnerable to know God is at least one message emitted from this Psalm! God tends to lean towards and into our suffering! Nice little holiday message your way today, anyway.Like
