Subject: Cup Passed? |
Bible Note: Colin, Psalm 22 in Luke 27:46. Matthew's other allusions to Psalm 22: Matt 27:35(Ps 22:18); Matt 27:39(Ps 22:7); Matt 27:43(Ps 22:8). Psalm 22 is depict the plight of a righteous sufferer who, although innocent, is mocked and scorned by his ungodly persecutors. He turns to God in his distress, relying on God for his deliverance and final vindication. This is what Jesus is doing when he prays Psalm 22 on the cross. He trusts God (Matt 27:43) and surrenders his spirit to God (Luke 24:46) believing that God with turn his humiliation and apparent defeat into victory.(cf Luke 24:43). The big picture: "Jesus handed over according to the definite plan of God" 599.Jesus' violent death was not the result of chance in an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances, but is part of the mystery of God's plan, as St. Peter explains to the Jews of Jerusalem in his first sermon on Pentecost: "This Jesus [was] delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God."(Acts 2:23) This Biblical language does not mean that those who handed him over were merely passive players in a scenario written in advance by God.(Cf. Acts 3:13) 600. To God, all moments of time are present in their immediacy. When therefore he establishes his eternal plan of "predestination", he includes in it each person's free response to his grace: "In this city, in fact, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place."(Acts 4:27-28; cf. Ps 2:1-2) For the sake of accomplishing his plan of salvation, God permitted the acts that flowed from their blindness.(Cf. Mt 26:54; Jn 18:36; 19:11; Acts 3:17-18) "He died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures" 601. The Scriptures had foretold this divine plan of salvation through the putting to death of "the righteous one, my Servant" as a mystery of universal redemption, that is, as the ransom that would free men from the slavery of sin.(Isa 53:11; cf. 53:12; Jn 8:34-36; Acts 3:14) Citing a confession of faith that he himself had "received", St. Paul professes that "Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures."(1 Cor 15:3; cf. also Acts 3:18; 7:52; 13:29; 26:22-23) In particular Jesus' redemptive death fulfills Isaiah's prophecy of the suffering Servant.(Cf. Isa 53:7-8 and Acts 8:32-35) Indeed Jesus himself explained the meaning of his life and death in the light of God's suffering Servant.(Cf. Mt 20:28) After his Resurrection he gave this interpretation of the Scriptures to the disciples at Emmaus, and then to the apostles.(1 Pt 1:18-20) "For our sake God made him to be sin" 602.Consequently, St. Peter can formulate the apostolic faith in the divine plan of salvation in this way: "You were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your fathers. . . with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was destined before the foundation of the world but was made manifest at the end of the times for your sake."(1 Pt 1:18-20) Man's sins, following on original sin, are punishable by death.(Cf. Rom 5:12; 1 Cor 15:56) By sending his own Son in the form of a slave, in the form of a fallen humanity, on account of sin, God "made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."(2 Cor 5:21; cf. Phil 2:7; Rom 8:3) 603. Jesus did not experience reprobation as if he himself had sinned.(Cf. Jn 8:46) But in the redeeming love that always united him to the Father, he assumed us in the state of our waywardness of sin, to the point that he could say in our name from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"(Mk 15:34; Ps 22:2; cf. Jn 8:29) Having thus established him in solidarity with us sinners, God "did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all", so that we might be "reconciled to God by the death of his Son".(Rom 8:32; 5:10) http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p122a4p2.htm#II Emmaus |