UNBLOCKING THE WELL OF THE LIVING WORD

PSALM 21-25

SUGGESTED PATTERN Read Psalm 21-25 with your spouse or household  then re-read Psalm 22 again with spouse or household, then spend 2 mins in silence focussing on  three verses, Psalm 22: vs 1,27,28 asking the Lord, the question “What does this text mean?” then 2 mins in silence asking the Lord what He is saying to you personally through three verses Psalm 22: vs 1, 27,28 and then share together with your spouse or household what the Lord has been saying. Finally one person reads out loud the devotional below and then pray for one another.  

PSALM 22:1, 27, 28. “1.My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning . ..27 All the ends of the Earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, 28 for dominion belongs to the Lord and he rules over the nations. ”

Over the past 4 years my wife and I have been in the process of moving from Cambridge to Coventry, with a fresh sense of call to a new city. At one point however we could have continued, and stayed in Cambridge as we had the potential of leading a bible school there, that had been continuing for the previous 5 years. We had a good possibility of at least 10 trainees, which  would have been a good sized bible school  but I didn’t feel the liberty to go ahead, as I had lost confidence in the method of interpretation that we had been using. I had started to read Richard Hays(1), book “Reading backwards,” He is a contemporary theologian, who is open to figurative interpretation, seeing Jesus in the Old Testament. I was challenged by reading the story of Jesus on the road to Emmaus with Cleopas and his companions. Jesus said, in Luke 24: 25-27 (2) “..how foolish you are and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.. did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? and beginning with Moses and all the prophets, explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.” This way that Jesus read the Scriptures seemed to me to be a different way of reading scripture, from the way that is encouraged in most bible colleges and theological colleges, that tend to focus more on original audience, original author and original situation.  

Craig Carter (3), argues that if you are trying to read the bible like any other book, trying  understand what the original author meant to communicate to the original audience in the original situation,… then your interpretation is wrong or at the very least,  highly misleading.  He also says the Enlightenment has (4) “cast a dark shadow over the scriptures and their christological meaning.. in other words Jesus Christ has been hidden and obscured..”

How did Jesus interpret the scriptures concerning himself on the road to Emmaus?  Would it not have been fascinating to have been on that road with Jesus? I wonder which passages in the Old Testament scriptures he would have explained concerning himself, maybe Isaiah 53, maybe even today’s passage Psalm 22. Certainly the church fathers interpreted Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 as prophetically speaking of Jesus and his victory.

I found Nicky Gumbel’s  (5) in his bible through the year devotional helpful, a couple of days ago, when  he said regarding Psalm 22.. “Psalm 22, starts off with despair and suffering (v.1) and describes prophetically the death of Jesus, ending with a great cry of victory: ‘He has done it!’ (v.31). God ‘has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help’ (v.24).This victory will lead to people all over the world turning ‘to the Lord’ (v.27). All the nations will bow down before him (v.27b). This victory will be proclaimed: ‘They shall come and shall declare his righteousness to a people yet to be born – that he has done it.  

Can we interpret more passages in the Old Testament and more Psalms in a similar way? For the church fathers not just the psalms but the Old Testament simply is Jesus Christ- the word made flesh. Recently, Tom Wright wrote a book (6) entitled  “How God became king.” saying that fundamental problem at the heart of Christianity today in the West, is that we have forgotten what the four gospels are all about… The truth is that Jesus is King. This is a truth that we have forgotten., he says. Could it be that we have forgotten that Jesus is king and Jesus has been obscured, largely because we have been using an Enlightenment method of interpretation for 400 years in our colleges and universities, treating the bible like any other book rather than as a sacred text?

If we see Jesus, prophetically revealed in Psalm 22, many years before He walked on this earth,  we can be encouraged  today that Jesus, at the very lowest point of his life – crucified and God forsaken – trusted in God to deliver him. The apparent defeat of the cross turned out to be the greatest victory of all time. If you are at a low point today, you can draw encouragement  that Jesus conquered death. Because of His victory that we read about in Psalm 22 , nothing can separate us from His love.. see Romans 8:37-39 (7).. “neither death no life neither angels nor Demons neither the present or the future nor any powers neither height nor depth nor anything else in creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Prayer

Open my eyes to see you King Jesus, the Living Word more clearly, in the scriptures I pray. Thank you that suffering does not have the last word. In you Jesus, the resurrection and the victory of God have the last word. Help me to keep trusting you.

References.

(1)  Hays,R.  Reading backwards.

(2)  NIV, in Luke 24: 25-27

(3)  Carter, C.A. Interpreting scripture with the Great Tradition, 205.

(4)  Carter, C.A. Interpreting scripture with the Great Tradition, 205.

(5)  Gumbel, N. The Bible with Nicky and Pippa Gumbel, Day 40, The Highs and Lows of Life.

(6) Wright, N.T. How God became king, 

(7)  NIV Romans  8:37-39