From "Help!" to "Hallelujah!"
Are these words part of scripture? True or false: “O God, smash their teeth in their mouths; the jaw-teeth of the lions, break, O Lord!” “O God, slay them… …consume them in wrath; consume, till they are no more.” Answer: True! These words are found in Psalms 58 and 59 respectively. In these psalms, the petitioners ask God to unleash God’s wrath upon their enemies. The authors of the psalms knew that life was marked by pain, suffering, betrayal and loneliness, and as these words demonstrate, they had no trouble laying bare their emotions before God whom they believed would act on their behalf. Centuries later, the psalms continue to offer us the language to speak of our deepest pain, our highest hopes, and everything in between. We can identify with the psalms because they reflect our own life experience. This is one reason we pray the psalms in liturgy. We also pray the psalms because Jesus prayed them.
This Sunday, we will sing the psalm which Jesus prayed on the cross: “God, my God, why have you abandoned me?” (Psalm 22) In praying this psalm, Jesus expressed a sense of abandonment. Yet a closer look at Psalm 22 reveals a happy ending--an ending which results not in death but in praise of God’s faithfulness: “Let the coming generation be told of the Lord that they may proclaim to a people yet to be born the justice God has shown.” What is it that causes this shift from utmost despair to profound hope? The psalmist remembers how God has acted in the past and comes to believe that God will act again. This transformation from fear to faith, which marks most of the psalms of lament, assures us that God’s faithfulness will prevail. When we feel as though we have been abandoned by God, that God is inattentive to our pain and sorrow, the psalms convince us that God will surely act again. The psalms help us to realize how dependent we are on God’s goodness. May we have the courage to pray as the psalmists, with gut-wrenching honesty, that even our laments may turn to praise. Amen!
