A Psalm for Good Friday

Good Friday Photography by Thomas York

The Psalms

22

A Cry of Anguish and Song of Praise
To the chief Musician upon Ai'jeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.
1	My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?          Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2	O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;          and in the night season, and am not silent.
3	But thou art holy,          O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4	Our fathers trusted in thee:          they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5	They cried unto thee, and were delivered:          they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
6	But I am a worm, and no man;          a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7	All they that see me laugh me to scorn:          they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8	He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him:          let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
9	But thou art he that took me out of the womb:          thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
10	I was cast upon thee from the womb:          thou art my God from my mother's belly.
11	Be not far from me; for trouble is near;          for there is none to help.
12	Many bulls have compassed me:          strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13	They gaped upon me with their mouths,          as a ravening and a roaring lion.
14	I am poured out like water,          and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15	My strength is dried up like a potsherd;          and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16	For dogs have compassed me:          the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
17	I may tell all my bones:          they look and stare upon me.
18	They part my garments among them,          and cast lots upon my vesture.
19	But be not thou far from me, O LORD:          O my strength, haste thee to help me.
20	Deliver my soul from the sword;          my darling from the power of the dog.
21	Save me from the lion's mouth:          for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
22	I will declare thy name unto my brethren:          in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.
23	Ye that fear the LORD, praise him;          all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.
24	For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;          neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
25	My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation:          I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
26	The meek shall eat and be satisfied:          they shall praise the LORD that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.
27	All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD:          and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
28	For the kingdom is the LORD's:          and he is the governor among the nations.
29	All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship:          all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.
30	A seed shall serve him;          it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.
31	They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness          unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.

This is one amazing scripture! Written a thousand years before the crucifixion, it chronicles with amazing detail the suffering of the Messiah upon the cross. It is instructive to lay this Psalm alongside the actual historical record of the crucifixion, found in the gospels: Matthew 27, Mark 15, Luke 23, John 19. According to Pastor Chuck Smith, "If you take just the prophecies of this one psalm alone and work them out with the law of compound probabilities, the chances of one person fulfilling them all would be one to 1 in 10 to 17th power (100,000,000,000,000,000). Yet Jesus fulfilled each one of these, in addition to over 300 prophecies concerning Him."

 I'm thankful that God left a prophetic footprint, one that satisfies the mind as well as the soul. I'm thankful for the sure word of prophecy and for the accurate record that has been passed down to us. Most of all, I am thankful for Jesus and that He willingly gave Himself to be crucified, to be buried, and to rise again the third day.

Art for Book Lovers

The Librarian. c.1566. Oil on canvas. Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1527–1593), Italian.

"There can be no great art without great fable. Great art can only exist where great men brood intensely on something upon which all men brood a little. . . (snip). . .Since the newspaper became powerful, topic has supplanted fable and subject comes to the artist untrimmed and unlit by the vitality of many minds."-John Masefield, English poet 

We are studying the golden Greek age of Pericles in our homeschool and noting how Greek myth--stories deeply entrenched in national thinking-- became the impetus for the great art, sculpture, and architecture that came forth from that era.

 At one time, the Bible was the one great story that was a uniting factor in our culture. We cannot fully appreciate our past history or our Western culture without a knowledge of the Holy Writ; our forefathers "brooded intensely" over it and made liberal references to it in their writings. Shakespeare's works are sprinkled with Biblical quotes and allusions. I have a friend who sagely comments, "Biblical illiteracy is a chosen misfortune." Do you agree?




I

A Study in Contrasts

The notorious Jonah provides an interesting contrast to the story of Jesus calming the angry sea (Mark 4 and Matthew 8).

• In both cases, God's will was very clear. To Jonah, God said, "Arise, go to Ninevah, that great city, and cry out against it. . ."
• And to the disciples Jesus said, "Let us cross over to the other side."  There could be no argument in either case, His will was presented in a straightforward manner.
• Jonah acted in direct disobedience to God's will and went down into a ship headed to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. The disciples, however, followed Jesus into the boat (Mt 8:23).
• For Jonah, "The Lord sent out a great wind on the sea, and there was a mighty tempest. . ."  The disciples encountered the same circumstances.  "And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves." 
• The mariners guiding Jonah's vessel were afraid; the disciples of Jesus experienced that very same fear. 
• In both cases, the sailors carried on board a sleeping passenger. Jonah was fast asleep in the lowest parts of the ship; Jesus slept on a pillow in the hinder part of the vessel. 
• Finally, the sailors experienced peaceful calm only after offering up desperate prayers. In the one case the sea quit raging after they heaved Jonah overboard, and in the other story the calm was achieved at the Word of the Master.

Are there useful nuggets of truth that I can glean from this study in contrasts?

God is master of every storm, and can use them to chasten disobedience OR to exercise the faith of His obedient disciples. It behooves me to evaluate when I find myself in a tempest. Is this storm sent to chasten my disobedience? If so, I can take courage in the fact that He preserved even the recalcitrant Jonah. " The Lord disciplines those he loves, and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son." Hebrews 12:6 His unchangeable character assures me that as He was merciful to Jonah, He will be merciful to me.

On the other hand, I may be walking in 100% obedience to His will and yet experience a tempest. Will I hold onto faith even when Jesus appears to be asleep, unresponsive to my dire need? Or will I capitulate to my fears and encounter the rebuke of Jesus, "How is it that you have no faith?" The very clear choice is fear or faith. They are mutually exclusive.

Jesus may seem slow in arising to the rescue, but better to wait for Him than to mimic Jonah, who was slow to repent. He waited until AFTER the great fish swallowed him before he began to pray. How much wiser to follow the example of the disciples, whose desperate, "Lord, we perish!" awakened the Master to action. 

My heart, let not the noise of the tempest drown out the voice of prayer. 

The Eleventh-Hour Savior Part II

"Away despair; my gracious Lord doth hear.
Though winds and waves assault my keel,
He doth preserve it: he doth steer,
Ev'n when the boat seems most to reel.
Storms are the triumph of his art:
Well may he close his eyes, but not his heart."
~George Herbert

Storms may be the "triumph of his [Jesus'] art" but they sure do wreak havoc on mere mortals. Even for the rugged adventurist, a storm is a challenge, forcing him to relinquish his grip on the controls. A storm, like the "great tempest" experienced by Christ's disciples (described in Matthew 8 and Mark 4), reduces even the seasoned and worldly-wise sailors to helplessness, causing them to cry out in desperation, "Lord, save us!" 

Mark's account adds a little reproach along with their plaintive plea for help: "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?"

Why is Jesus so maddeningly slow to act? Why is it He waits until the eleventh-hour to arise to their aid?

This question is especially perplexing in light of the fact that the disciples found themselves in this extremity precisely BECAUSE they were following Jesus. In Matthew's account, Jesus had issued the challenge to "Follow me," and the disciples took up that challenge by doing just that: "Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him." Surely their obedience should have merited a safe, smooth passage across the lake?

Instead, their obedience earned them a fight for their life. A great tempest arose and their vessel was swamped. They were sinking fast, while Jesus slept peacefully on a pillow in the hinder part of the ship, the picture of perfect tranquility and apparently oblivious to their epic struggle. 

I can picture the disciples straining at the oars, feverishly bailing the water out of their vessel. They didn't want to awaken Jesus and at first they *thought* they could handle it. They were experienced fishermen, after all! They would prove themselves worthy, prove themselves competent to shuttle Jesus to the other side. Perhaps there was a little pride involved, perhaps they thought, "We can handle this one ourselves, no need to wake the Master." 

At last, having spent every ounce of their strength and exhausting every inner resource, they knew they were licked. Time to admit defeat and awaken Jesus. How could he sleep through such turmoil??

"Lord, save us, we perish!" followed by, "Don't You care that we perish?"

One can feel the desperation in those words, along with a tinge of reproach.

Jesus immediately rises to the need, rebuking the wind and waves and achieving perfect calm at His Word. Then He turns to rebuke the disciples, not for waking Him, but for their fearfulness and lack of faith.

It is an impossibility for a soul to be full of fear and faith at the same time. When one enters, the other must leave. Jesus' rebuke revealed the expectation He held for His disciples: that they would keep hold of their faith even in a tempest. How was this possible for them? How is it possible for me, a disciple of another generation, to maintain faith in the midst of a tempest?

The fact that Jesus expects faith reveals that it MUST be possible to achieve. A careful look at the text gives some clues that help the seeker find the key to success. First, the command of Christ in Mark 5:35 was, "Let us pass over unto the other side." As already noted, the disciples followed that command in obedience. The fact that Jesus used the pronoun "us" indicates that it was clearly His will for the entire crew to pass to the other side. Can anything thwart His will? Can any storm prevent Him from His stated purpose? Of course not, but the disciples had apparently forgotten this Word in the noise of the storm. 

The storm not only caused them to forget His stated purpose, but it also revealed a bit of insecurity, a doubt within their hearts. Did Jesus really care about them? If so, why had He abandoned them to this squall? Their inability to believe that He truly cared for them was a greater breach of faith than their inability to believe He could calm the storm.

And so it is I find myself identifying with the weaknesses of the disciples. Often I have embarked upon a mission, fully knowing that it was a God-ordained assignment. Sure enough, I've encountered tempestuous circumstances in opposition to my work, causing me to focus on the storm and to momentarily forget that my work was commissioned by the Master. Emotions falter, negative thoughts flood into my soul as fast as the water was flooding the disciples' vessel. 

"Jesus, where are You? Why aren't You helping me? Have you left me alone to be destroyed by these adverse circumstances?"

It is said that even steel can withstand only so much pressure, and will break if tempered too long. Disciples are tempered by their experiences, and Jesus knows exactly when we've had enough, exactly how much pressure is too much to bear. At that moment, and not one moment too late, He steps in and calms the storm and stills the tumult. 

The disciples had the advantage of the bodily presence of Jesus, visible to their sight and providing a certain measure of security. I don't have that, but I have something even better. "It is to your advantage that I go away," Jesus tells His disciples, "for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send Him to you." John 16:7

In the midst of the storm, the Helper bears witness with my spirit that I belong to God (Romans 8:16). He calls to my remembrance examples from scripture, like the above story of the calming of the storm, to remind me of His character. By these enablings I can cast out fear--not only the fear of the storm, but the fear of abandonment, of feeling that I am unworthy of His intervention.

Disciples usually don't have any problem believing that God is BIG enough to calm storms, the difficulty lies in believing He wants to do this FOR ME. This is a blatant lack of faith and displays an under-confidence in His love, and it is the thing that warrants a rebuke from Jesus. May God help me to lay hold of this truth: that because I believe in Him I shall not perish in the storm, but He shall delight to rescue me because by His blood I am accepted in the Beloved. 

Rescued, loved, thriving ever after. . . I love happy endings, don't you?

The Eleventh-Hour Savior Part I

 

 

In reading about Jesus and his dealings with the sisters Martha and Mary, and their brother Lazarus (John chapter 11), it occurred to me that the timetable Jesus kept was often out of sync with that of his human counterparts. He was not punctual by human standards; He delayed two days before setting off to help His dear friends.  The One who transcended time and space operated according to His own timetable and I doubt He would have carried a Day-Timer or used an iCalendar, had they been available to Him. 

Why did He choose to be late in so many cases? Yes, it appears to have been a deliberate choice, and He must have had a reason for it. I would like to explore this issue by cataloging, in a series of articles, some of the instances in which Jesus chose to be "late." 

First, a story from the book of Luke, chapter 8 verses 40-56. Jairus, ruler of the synagogue, implored Jesus to come to his house and heal his only daughter, twelve years old and the apple of his eye. Willingly, Jesus followed the man but on the way was interrupted by another needy person, the woman with the issue of blood. After she surreptitiously touched the hem of His garment, she was miraculously healed. Jesus stopped and in an unhurried manner coaxed forth the woman's testimony of healing and made proclamation of her faith. This little incident stole precious minutes from the urgent errand of Jairus, who accordingly received the dreaded news, "Your daughter is dead. Do not trouble the Teacher."  

Jesus, however, refocused His attention on Jairus' need and reassured him with the words, "Do not be afraid; only believe, and she will be made well." And indeed, the spirit returned to that little girl and she arose and ate and was restored to her parents.

The delay of only a few minutes was the difference between life and death to that little girl. Jesus must have known the urgency, must have seen the desperation in the eyes of Jairus. Why did He allow Himself to be detained by the seemingly insignificant touching of the hem of His garment?  

Here is also a study in contrasts. The woman with the issue of blood would have been considered unclean and was therefore not permitted to worship in the synagogue. Conversely, Jairus was the ruler of the synagogue, one who had daily access. Jesus chose to minister first to the outcast, to allow her to be more important for that moment than the "important" synagogue ruler. He, the one who was by position in the forefront, had to step aside for the woman who was the outcast. He had to wait for her needs to be met first. 

Jairus was forced to take the lowest place, to be placed on the bottom shelf. As ruler, he was now relegated to the position of least. Perhaps Jesus was giving him a lesson in "he who is first shall be last" and "he who is greatest shall be servant of all." Servant leadership was Jesus' specialty. He modeled it consistently.

What lessons for those of us in positions of spiritual authority? What lesson for me? 

• A delay is not fatal, contrary to outward appearances. 
• Go to the back of the line, rejoice in the victories of others ahead of me.
• My need will be abundantly met in His own good time.