ISSL Reflections October 13, 2024 Psalm 22:1–11 Post 3

VII.
As you spend time with the Psalm today, how do you hear the Psalmist speak of hope?

VIII.
Psalm 22:1-11 (NRSVue)

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.

Yet you are holy,
       enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted;
       they trusted, and you delivered them.
To you they cried and were saved;
       in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

But I am a worm and not human,
       scorned by others and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
       they sneer at me; they shake their heads;
“Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver—
       let him rescue the one in whom he delights!”

Yet it was you who took me from the womb;
       you kept me safe on my mother’s breast.
On you I was cast from my birth,
       and since my mother bore me you have been my God.
Do not be far from me,
       for trouble is near,
       and there is no one to help.

IX.
The Psalm opens with the declaration that the Psalmist feels forsaken and that God is “so far from helping me.”

And this portion of Psalm ends with the request that God “not be far from me …”

Yet he also speaks of God being holy and of those who have trusted in God in the past and even can say, “… since my mother bore me you have been my God.”

Where is the Psalmist’s hope?

Does he expect an answer when he asks God to not be far?

charles
{ubi caritas et amor, Deus ibi est}


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