Musings on the Daily Lectionary

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.

These words from Psalm 22 are certainly appropriate on Good Friday, even if Jesus only speaks the opening line. On this day when many Christians contemplate Jesus' suffering and death, I also wrestle with its meaning. I've shared here before that I am not much comforted or impressed with mechanical, formulaic understandings of Jesus' passion. The notion that Jesus had to suffer terribly in order to pay enough of a price for all of us has never seemed a very compelling one to me. And while there are scriptural passages that will support such a view, I don't see the bulk of scriptural witness doing so.

As I've pondered this, it strikes me that viewing the cross primarily as a formula for providing personal salvation can become a way of minimizing Jesus' call for all his followers to embrace the way of the cross. If the cross is the preeminent example of God's power made perfect in weakness, then the cross is much more about the ways of God than it is about formulas.

If the cross is God's ultimate weapon against sin and death, what does that say about how we are to bear witness to the victory that God has won?

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