"When in Rome...", Psalm 22, and other oft-quoted yet incomplete thoughts. (orig. posted to Facebook)

This was originally posted to Facebook on December 1, 2009.

Finish the sentences for me if you can:

"When in Rome..."

"The best laid plans of mice and men..."

"Six of one..."

"You can lead a horse to water..."

"When life hands you lemons..."

You may not know all of those, but you know some of them, right? We don't even have to finish the sentences most of the time, and people understand what we're talking about. We use shorthand in our conversations because we have a collective societal understanding of what the abbreviated phrase represents in the long form.

There's a theory out there among some Christians concerning the crucifixion of Christ that says that the words of Jesus in Matthew 27:46 demonstrate, along with II Corinthians 5:21, how Jesus completely became and embodied the sin of mankind. Since God cannot exist in the presence of sin (is that even accurate? Wouldn't that kind of imply that God leaves us every time we're in our sin?), and Jesus had become sin, God had to leave - forsake - Jesus. And that's why we have the verse we have:

Matthew 27:46

"About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, 'Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?'—which means, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'"

I don't really know if I agree with that theory. I wanna make this point clear, first off - I don't think it matters. That's not salvation issue material. You can believe that Jesus became sin or you can believe that He stayed in contact with God the whole time, like I do, it doesn't matter. God will still love you no matter what.

But anyway - the theory and my problems with it. For starts, I don't think God could leave Jesus, since the whole idea of Jesus is that He is God in the flesh. If the whole idea that Jesus became the physical embodiment of sin holds, then in the moment that God "left" Jesus, then Jesus would have been nothing but a man, completely full of sin, dying on the cross. That... doesn't quite jive with me. The point of the crucifixion of Christ is that God was willing to sacrifice His Son - a part of Himself - in order to redeem humanity. If God withdrew the Spirit from Jesus as He was dying, then the whole sacrifice doesn't make sense.

Another of my problems with it is that if you look at the Old Testament example for sacrifice, you see over and over and over again that all of the sacrifices to God had to be completely perfect. "Without blemish" is a pretty popular phrase in the Pentateuch. If the sacrificial lamb had a broken leg, it was no good. If the sacrificial bull had a birth defect, it was no good. The sacrifice itself had to be perfect. I'm not saying that the verse in II Corinthians isn't valid, I'm just saying it's a metaphor. The whole point of the sacrifice was that when someone sinned, something had to die in order to maintain the balance of holy justice. And the dying thing had to be perfect, because its death allowed the sinner to continue their life by transferring the death that they deserved onto something that didn't deserve it at all.

And my last problem with it, and this is gonna be my nifty little segue into my whole point with this, is that Jesus knew way too much of the scripture to just arbitrarily pick "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" as His expression of choice. According to Matthew, those are the last words of Christ before His death.

So let's build a metaphor bridge together. Let's say I'm dying and you're in the room with me and I know I'm about to go. We're all misty-eyed, since... you know... I'm dying... But I take your hand, and look you in the eyes, and I say, with my dying breaths... "When life gives you lemons..." And then I'm gone.

So now you're at my funeral and everybody else is there, and they're talking to you because they know you were the last person to talk to me before I shuffled off this mortal coil. When they ask what my last words were, you can tell them with ease, because even if I didn't actually finish the sentence, you know exactly what I meant. "When life gives you lemons..." is enough of the thought that the rest comes with it naturally. So you can take my dying advice about optimism in the face of adversity to heart because you know what I was trying to tell you.

That's how I see it going with Jesus.

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is the first line of the 22nd Psalm. The Psalm itself is 31 verses long, which might have been a bit of a mouthful to try to get out in the midst of a crucifixion.

I can send my Dad a text message that only says, "For days, I have tried to forget you," and he immediately knows what I'm talking about. He knows all the other verses just because of the opening line. The short introductory phrase brings the whole idea to mind.

So now let's look at what happens after "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?"

Psalm 22

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?

2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,

by night, and am not silent.

3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;

you are the praise of Israel.

4 In you our fathers put their trust;

they trusted and you delivered them.

5 They cried to you and were saved;

in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

6 But I am a worm and not a man,

scorned by men and despised by the people.

7 All who see me mock me;

they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

8 "He trusts in the LORD;

let the LORD rescue him.

Let him deliver him,

since he delights in him."

9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;

you made me trust in you

even at my mother's breast.

10 From birth I was cast upon you;

from my mother's womb you have been my God.

11 Do not be far from me,

for trouble is near

and there is no one to help.

12 Many bulls surround me;

strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

13 Roaring lions tearing their prey

open their mouths wide against me.

14 I am poured out like water,

and all my bones are out of joint.

My heart has turned to wax;

it has melted away within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

you lay me in the dust of death.

16 Dogs have surrounded me;

a band of evil men has encircled me,

they have pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I can count all my bones;

people stare and gloat over me.

18 They divide my garments among them

and cast lots for my clothing.

19 But you, O LORD, be not far off;

O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

20 Deliver my life from the sword,

my precious life from the power of the dogs.

21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;

save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

22 I will declare your name to my brothers;

in the congregation I will praise you.

23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!

All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!

Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

24 For he has not despised or disdained

the suffering of the afflicted one;

he has not hidden his face from him

but has listened to his cry for help.

25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;

before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;

they who seek the LORD will praise him—

may your hearts live forever!

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.

29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;

all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—

those who cannot keep themselves alive.

30 Posterity will serve him;

future generations will be told about the Lord.

31 They will proclaim his righteousness

to a people yet unborn—

for he has done it.

For those of you who don't follow poetry very well, let me sum this up: "Dear God, Everything is awful right now, but I know You are still God, and You are still looking after me. God, I know You are going to set things right by YOUR standards, and I know that no matter what happens, You will still be God. Just... well... if you felt like making this whole nasty mess I'm in right now work out where I'm not dead, that'd be... that'd be just super. I love You."

I'm going through stuff. The stuff I'm going through is making everything just kinda awful. I'm still trying to let go of the illusion of control, and I'm trying to focus on what needs to be cut from my life and what is worth keeping. I'm trying to get a lot of things right, and it's definitely hurting.

But I don't think - for a moment - that God has forsaken me. Oh, it may feel like it sometimes... I may feel alone... But I know I've got something bigger than me at my back. I know I've got my faith. I know I've got God, and I know He's got me.

God never promised us happiness. In fact, it's made pretty evident throughout the gospels and the epistles that if you're actually doing this Christian life thing right, things are going to get rough. You will be despised. You will be persecuted. You will be mocked. You will have times where the only thing you've got left in your life is God.

But know - don't feel, know - that God has a picture in mind of how the world will be when it is finally perfect. He's working towards it, using us to get it there. Sometimes He uses happiness to teach us things... Sometimes He uses pain. If we accept the happiness but ignore the pain, what are we actually learning? If we thank God for all of our blessings but don't thank Him for our trials, aren't we selling Him short?

I know trials aren't any fun, but neither is going to the dentist. It's still good for you.

Go look back at verses 21 and 22 of the psalm. Notice that there's not a conditional relationship between those two verses. The psalmist isn't saying, "God, if you save me from this, I promise I'll go to church EVERY SUNDAY for the rest of my life." What he's saying is, "God, I know you can save me, and if you would, that would be great. But in any case, you are my God, and I will praise you, no matter what."

So I'm sitting here, staring down the barrel of a loaded shotgun of uncertainty in my future, scared to death about losing something that really means a lot to me, and all I can think is...

God... I know You're looking after me... And I know You're gonna work this out, one way or another... But if there's ANY WAY we could get through this without the whole part where I'm completely miserable for months and cry myself to sleep and don't eat or shave or find joy in the kisses of a puppy... that'd be just super. But no matter what happens... You're still my God, and I am still going to follow You to the best of my ability with every step I take.

In Christ's name, Amen.

(For more of the whole Jesus-as-sin theory, this link has a better explanation than mine. I still disagree with it, but the explanation is better.)