Easter: Where suffering was redeemed
By Elizabeth Kendall'
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' (Psalm 22:1) Jesus cried these words as he hung on the cross (Matthew 27:46). Today words just like them are cried from prisons in Eritrea, Egypt, China, Vietnam, Laos, North Korea and Pakistan where believers are detained and tortured. They are cried from homes in war-torn Iraq; refugee camps in Uganda, Syria, Turkey and Jordan; UN-protected enclaves in threatened Kosovo; the inhospitable jungles of Papua; by Christians who wonder every day if religious hatred will engulf them and deadly terror overtake them. Traumatised, terrorised believers frequently find themselves wondering if God has deserted them. (Psalm 22:1-11) They need our love, encouragement, advocacy, assistance and prayers. Please remember them this Easter.
When Jesus was betrayed by a disciple, brutalised by soldiers, mocked and abused by the masses, falsely accused, tried in a 'kangaroo court' and unjustly executed, it appeared that everything that could go wrong, did go wrong. Yet, unbeknown to all who observed, a great battle was being waged in the invisible spiritual realm.
Whilst Psalm 22 is known as the Psalm of the Cross, it has a wonderful and significant progression whereby the heart-wrenching cry of pain and suffering culminates as a song of victory. The Psalm of the Cross is also a Psalm of Good News, a Psalm of the Kingdom! '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.' (Psalm 22:27) And this is guaranteed: '. . .for he has done it' (v 31); 'It is finished' (John 19:30).
The same progression is evident in Isaiah 53-54 where the portrait of the suffering servant who pours out his life unto death to bear the sins of many, culminates as a call to celebrate, a declaration of life and growth: 'Sing . . . burst into song, shout for joy . .. Enlarge the place of the tent . . .'
Through the blood of the Lamb shed on the cross the Church was born. Through the witness of the saints to a fallen and hostile world the Kingdom is growing. The Easter message is one of redemption, not only of sinners but of suffering. And because of this we have both peace with God and hope for the future.