Good Friday
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
Why did Jesus quote these specific lines during his suffering, â??unless he was somehow trying to catch our attention, to make us understand, â??this psalm was written about me?â?? (Exp 2.3 of Ps 21). Augustine draws the attention of his congregation to Christâ??s utterance of these verses to explicate the meaning of their Good Friday service, a service designed to make present what took place in time past, and in this way it moves us as if we were actually watching our Lord hanging on the cross, but watching as believers, not mockers (exp 2.1 of ps. 21 (ie. Psalm 22). Christ prayer on the cross continues today in the commemoration of the church. He emphasises that the world and his congregation both stand before that cross, either as mockers or as those who groan with the sufferings of Christ. â??The chaff on his threshing floor mocks him and the wheat groans to hear its Lord deridedâ?? (exp 2.1 of Ps 21).
Augustine is unpacking for his congregation what it means to sing this psalm, as Christâ??s body, part of the Totus Christus). Christ was praying the prayer of his church, presenting their fear and trial as he carried their sin, and quoting the very words that they too sing today as a memorial of his passion.
Brian Brock on Augustine in Singing the Ethos of God
And from Matthew Baker
God created man in the year 33, on a hill in Palestine called Golgotha. On the sixth day of the week â?? on Holy Friday â?? the true man in the image of God is heralded by Pontius Pilate, as he brings forth the thorny-crowned, purple-robed Christ and announces â??Behold the man!â?? .
