Text: Psalm 22:9-21
No one goes through life on this earth without suffering, pain, and loss. Without Jesus, life would be little more than a series of losses leading to the final loss of death. But Jesus will not leave us in such hopelessness. Martin Franzmann put it eloquently in LSB 834: “O God, O Lord of Heaven and Earth / Thy living finger never wrote / that life should be an aimless mote, /a deathward drift from futile birth.” Jesus always pulls us up to something greater, something more, something beautiful.
Jesus himself experienced great loss on our behalf. The verses for this meditation, Psalm 22:9-21, are part of the psalm that more than any other expresses the depths of the suffering that Jesus endured in His own body on the cross—the suffering, pain, and death that we all deserve. But Jesus’ suffering pulls us up from our sin, misery, and suffering, to life and hope.
In the famous resurrection icon, Jesus grasps Adam’s hand, pulling him up from his grave. That is our eternal destiny. In Jesus, there is forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. There is hope for a future, a destiny beyond what we can see but that we will one day fully know. Verse 10 proclaims, “from my mother’s womb you have been my God.” These are words about Jesus, but they are also words about us. Jesus’ Father is our Father—and in Jesus, we will stand before His merciful face for all eternity.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, You have been our God from before our birth. In Your mercy, through Jesus Your Son, bring us through this vale of tears to Yourself in heaven. Amen.
(Josef Muench, Sem II)