"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Because Jesus repeats these words from the cross, many of us are familiar with the opening of today's psalm, Psalm 22. But we may be less familiar with some of the other lines. " 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."
Clearly the psalmist's predicament is dismal. But, as the conclusion of the psalm makes clear, even while experiencing this terror, the psalmist does not doubt that God is still God, and God is sovereign. "Future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it." Presumably Jesus also recalls these words during his utterance from the cross.
Before I read today's psalm, the issue of how people understand suffering and tragedy was already in front of me. A person requesting prayers pleaded for help so that "Satan wouldn't win." But I think this psalm, and the resurrection, insist that no tragedy can be so severe as to be a "win" for Satan. Even in the midst of the worst that can happen, somehow, in ways that we often cannot understand, God is still God, and God is still sovereign.
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