Four Famous last words? Thurman on Jesus + King David for Good Friday

Famous last words?  Four such words are on my mind and in my heart today as millions of people worldwide observe Good Friday, and I’m with you dear friends in solidarity. 

 The four words I’m feeling drawn to today weave our deepest dread and highest hopes, together.  These biblical words also link this ongoing Below the Bible Belt journey with our calendar, in which today, one of the world’s biggest religions offers us words to help make sense of sorrow and grief as the violence continues right in the world, and especially in the region where this violent story happened 2000 years ago. 

What was the last time you quoted a poetic line you knew by heart  - maybe when your heart was overwhelmed with love? Or when a heart was broken? When death was in your face?  Words can help or even heal - poetry becomes prayer,  we need words we know by heart for when we need them most. Like these four famous words. 

When Jesus, on the cross in Jerusalem is about to die he leaves behind  seven sentences. One of them is a quote from the Psalms - in the Aramaic translation that he was likely most familiar with and knew by heart -- 

אֵלִ֣י אֵ֭לִי לָמָ֣ה עֲזַבְתָּ֑נִי 

“My God, my God, why have You abandoned me”

I’m struck with those words today for several reasons.  First - how does this story of oppression by the empire resonate today?

How does this prophet’s pain, his people’s betrayal, pierce our hearts? 

I remembered the wise words of Rev. Howard Thurman, African American theologian and leader who brought Jesus to the modern experience of resistance and reckoning with all ways of finding hope inside systemic oppression.  Thurman wrote: 

 “The implication of the cry, which Jesus quotes from one of the Psalms is that in his moment of complete exhaustion, Jesus was making one of the great elemental discoveries about the nature of existence; namely, that often the point at which man becomes most keenly aware of the reality of God is on the lonely height, when he is stripped to the literal substance of himself, with nothing between his soul and an ultimate agony. At such a moment, God is seen as the only reality, and oneness with Him as the only fulfillment”

Take away Thurman’s male language and even use of the word God if that’s not working for you and what we get is the fusion of human doubt and surrender, the paradox of being in relationship with the great mystery even when so much around us hurts so much. The cry of the pain is also a cry of love. 

What can we make of these four words, during these devastating days of rupture, each in our own way?  This feels important. How can we bring these words as some sort of comfort to so many who are struggling with grief and hunger, doubt and insecurity? How can these words help us find faith in hope for resurrection of kindness, and in each other’s care -even in the midst of war?

The second reason I’m focusing on these four words today is because they meet me - and perhaps you - on this journey of reading through the Hebrew Bible day by day. We’re about to end the second section  - The Prophets - in ten days -  and begin the third section - Ketuvim, The Writings - with the Book of poetry known as the Psalms. These 150 chapters have been beloved by so many people of faith for centuries and it’s no wonder that Jesus, an educated Jewish teacher, quoted these words at his final hour of distress. 

As we begin to prepare for the months in which we’ll explore this potent poetry day by day, I know that they have meaning for our souls, at all times, both sorrow and serenity as we struggle with reality and our responsibility for each other.  This feels like an important day to begin preparing for this journey with poetic purpose for our souls that need a lot of love. 

By the way -- i’m going to name them - THE PSLAMS.

Slam Poetry for our troubled times. Starting on April 9th -- hope you can join me! more info to come.

Next week we have a few more days with Zechariah the Prophet and then Malachi will seal the deal of the prophets. What a journey of inspiration this continues to be. 

Meanwhile -- wishing us all holy days of hope and healing as Easter is celebrated this weekend, Ramadan continues, and Passover is on the way.

May we hold all the complexities together, with compassion, care and courage. Not forsaking each other - holding each other with love. 

Shabbat Shalom.