Crucifixion, by Jacobello del Fiore [c.1400]
Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am distressed;
my eye wastes away in grief, my spirit and my body.
My life is spent from sorrow, and my years from groaning;
my strength fails in my iniquity, and my bones are wasted away.
I have become a reproach to all my enemies––and to my neighbors especially––
and a dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.
I am forgotten, like a dead man, out of mind;
I have become like an earthen vessel, destroyed.
For I hear the whispering of many, terror from all around in their scheming together against me;
they plot to take my life.
But me––on you I am trusting, O Lord; I am saying, “You are my God.”
The seasons of my life are in your hand;
rescue me from the hand of my enemies and my persecutors.
Shine your face on your servant! Save me in your lovingkindness.
–from Psalm 31
Yesterday’s meditation was quite cerebral; in contrast, this passage is exactly the opposite. This psalm is sentimental, even visceral in its portrayal of emotions that we have all experienced. But for today, let us not personalize this prayer with ourselves as the target. It is tradition in the Christian religion to re-enact in our worship during Holy Week the events of Christ’s Passion––we wave palm fronds, wash each other’s feet, venerate Jesus on the cross, and hold vigil until his resurrection. Today, I encourage us to take the imagination one step further, to transport ourselves back in time and participate in the events themselves. We are the same crowd that chants both “Hosanna!” and “Crucify!” So let us forget our lazy and fickle selves and rather seek to identify with Christ.
Let us plead with the Father to be gracious to Jesus as his spirit and body expire upon the cross. Let us groan with sorrow at the reproach that Jesus endured from his enemies, and especially from his closest friends. Let us lament that in his death Jesus has been forgotten, out of mind, by the very people he came to save––in spite of the fact he is indeed risen from the dead! Let us hear the plotting and the scheming against his very life; and let us not raise our voices in protest but instead say…
Not my will, Father; but Your kingdom come, Your will be done.
Jesus trusted God his Father. Let us also trust. Jesus prayed, “You are my God.” Let us also pray. Jesus placed his life in the hand of his Father, truly and literally, even in the midst of a rejection and forsaken-ness that he had never known before. The most intimate and everlasting fellowship of the Triune God was broken somehow during those few hours while Jesus hung on the cross. Is it really so much for us to trust Him in the midst of our loneliness and pain? Yes, it is so much: too much, in fact. It was not too much for Jesus, but it is too much for us. However, God’s grace is sufficient even for that. In the end, all we can say is this:
Father, we beg You, please smile on us and save us in Your lovingkindness!
So let us say it, together, today. Then let us empathize with Jesus our Mediator, the one close to the Father’s heart, His one-and-only well-beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased.
Reading the Old Testament 