Becoming Like Christ: Remembering Jesus' Humanity
Friday, April 2
----------------------------
Becoming Like Christ:
Remembering Jesus’ Humanity
Psalm 22: 1-2, 6-8, 12-15
Rev. Dr. Paul Wallace
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by others, and despised by the people.
All who see me mock at me;
they make mouths at me, they shake their heads;
‘Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
let him rescue the one in whom he delights!’Many bulls encircle me,
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
my mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
Meditation
Good Friday has arrived. Jesus has eaten his final meal with friends, has been betrayed by one he loves, has been denied by his closest disciple, has been abandoned by his dearest companions, has been tried unfairly, beaten, mocked, and tortured. He now hangs alone and naked on the cross and hovers at the edge of death. Before drawing his last breath he cries, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
At the moment of his death, Jesus reaches back to scripture, pulling words from Psalm 22. One powerful aspect of this citation is that, by choosing the first line of the psalm, Jesus brings the rest along with it. To the mind of witnesses and future readers of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, his words evoke the full agony and pathos of Psalm 22.
He is “a worm, and not human”; mocked for his trust in a God who has abandoned him; “poured out like water”; crying out to the one who is at this moment laying him in the dust of death.
If Lent is the season to remember our own humanity, today is the day to remember Jesus’s. We often turn from this face of Jesus because what most of us want most of the time is not a naked human being on a cross but a man of steel. We want someone who has special powers we don’t have, who never shows signs of weakness, who faces his enemies directly and forcefully, who avoids humiliation and defeat, who does not relinquish control. Yet in Jesus, we find none of this. In Jesus, we find one who submits absolutely to God who, at this moment and to all evidence, has forsaken him.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I believe Jesus meant this line exactly as he spoke it. He did not say it for show; he did not say it winkingly, knowing in the back of his mind that all would be well; he felt truly and completely abandoned and lost. His surrender to death was an act of absolute and irrational trust, made alone in a trackless wilderness without a guide or fixed point. He threw himself into the unknown with no certainty in what would happen next. This is the experience of humanity, and this is the experience of Jesus.
Such an understanding of Jesus’ words is made necessary by our shared belief in his humanity, and it is only through such an understanding that we human beings can even hope to be saved by God through the human being called Jesus of Nazareth.
Exercise
Read Psalm 22 through slowly, meditating on the images and message, and reflect on a time when you acted faithfully in the face of uncertainty or even disaster.
About “Becoming Like Christ” (Weekly Lenten Reflections)
In 2019, we developed a 7-week long series packed full of devotions called “Exploring Humanity and Divinity.” It was about wrestling with our humanity as we seek to be transformed into the likeness of Christ.
After a tumultuous last year, and with tensions high on political, cultural, and social levels, it seems that “wrestling” is just as relevant today as it was two years ago.
In that spirit, we believed it would be healthy to resurrect a similar theme to this year’s Lenten devotional series: Becoming Like Christ.