Ponder His Passion: Psalm 22

Second Friday of Lent: some reflections on Psalm 22

In one sense, it seems odd to speak of the Psalms in terms of the Passion of Jesus. Weren’t the Psalms written hundreds or even thousands of years before the time of Christ? While this is true, these beautiful songs are also divinely inspired and prophetic. In fact, in the earliest preaching of the Apostles we find them repeatedly referring to David as a prophet and the Psalms as prophecies of Christ.

The Church has long associated the words of these inspired hymns with the actions and sentiments of her Divine Bridegroom, and in the Liturgy of the Hours she elevates all of them to their deepest Christian and Christological meaning. The Paschal Mystery – the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Christ – is the central event of Jesus’ life, and as such, it is the mystery of His that the Church most frequently highlights in the Psalms. Over and over again, the Breviary quotes a Church Father or a line from the Passion narratives to explain the meaning of a particular Psalm.

So what makes a Psalm a “Passion Psalm?” In one sense, the entire Psalter could be classified as such, because all of the sentiments expressed in it were found in the Heart of Christ during His Passion. Some mystics even say that Jesus was praying the Psalms continuously throughout His suffering – as we see glimpses in His quoting from Psalms 22 and 130 on the Cross. However, a number of Psalms are applicable in a particularly special way to the Passion and Death of Our Lord. They contain some of the more poignant descriptions of physical, psychological, and spiritual suffering, as well as powerful prayers of trust and even prophecies of specific elements of the Passion narrative. The most famous of these is, of course, Psalm 22. Allow me to share with you a few of my own reflections on the first few verses of this mysterious hymn of suffering and triumph.

“Eli, eli, lamma sabacthani? — My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”  

These haunting words of Christ on the Cross have forever branded Psalm 22 as “the” Passion Psalm. They are also the only one of the Seven Last Words that has been handed down to us in the original Aramaic. It is as if the Evangelists wanted to sear this moment into our memory by preserving the actual sound of Jesus’ anguished cry to the Father.

Countless books and articles have been written to refute the claim that Christ, the only Son of God, somehow fell victim to the sin of despair in this moment. They rightly point out that He is intoning a Psalm that ends in triumph and vindication. This is all undoubtedly true and important to affirm; however, we must also keep in mind that Our Lord’s heart-wrenching cry of abandonment is not a mere “quote,” but a profound and true expression of the anguish in His human Heart. He, the all-Holy, took our sins upon Himself, and in His human nature He experienced, as far as was possible, the sheer agony that results from our estrangement from the Father. He raised this cry on behalf of and in union with all suffering humanity of all time – truly, none can now claim that “God doesn’t understand my pain.”

“Yet You are enthroned on the praises of Israel … in You they trusted, and You set them free.”

These lines, immediately following the psalmist’s passionate lament, reveal a startlingly resilient confidence in God’s goodness. This is a feature that shows up again and again in the Passion Psalms, underlining the complete trust in the Father that Christ displayed in the midst of His suffering. In this particular instance, we can see evidence of the power of memory – the mere recalling of God’s past fidelity to Israel has the power to give trust and confidence even in the midst of untold suffering.

“But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men, despised by the people.”

Despite being so grounded in a faith in God’s goodness, the psalmist does not try to sugarcoat his pain. So crushed is he that he even feels unworthy of the title of human being; his life is as disposable as that of a worm. Applying these words to Christ, we can only cry out in the words of the Easter Exsultet, “O wonder of Your humble care for us!” Imagine, that God would lower Himself not only to our level, but even below it, in His determination to save us! This verse of the Psalm also emphasizes a truth that we can all attest to, and which Jesus Himself experienced in His Passion: sometimes scorn and contempt wound far more deeply than physical pain. By embracing this aspect of our broken human experience, Our Lord united Himself in a special way to all those suffering ridicule for any reason.

“From my mother’s womb, You are my God.” 

The psalmist never goes long without reaffirming his unshakeable fidelity to the Lord. It is as much a fact of his life as his own birth! How true this is for Jesus, “who, on coming into the world, said … ‘behold, I come to do Your Will, O God.’” (Hebrews 10: 5,7). And here we can even see a reference to Our Lady, the faithful Handmaid of the Lord, whose immaculate womb sheltered Christ for the first nine months of His human life. It was in her womb that the Incarnation, that miracle of self-emptying and obedient love, took place. And so it is completely appropriate that we find Mary also at the foot of the Cross. She who was so intimately associated with the beginning of Christ’s redeeming mission is profoundly united with Him at its climax as well. O Mother of Sorrows, teach us to stand faithfully at the Cross of your Son!

Photo courtesy of Steve Hermann