A Placid Sea of Galilee
Calibrating Our Truth-O-Meter
Dear Friends, I was scrolling through my Twitter feed this week. A particular thread regarding pictures without a broader context caught my attention. Oddly enough, it reminded me of something Jesus said when he was on the cross. Here are some of my thoughts this week.
Sometimes a picture isn’t worth a 1000 words Photos appeared in the Danish media that seemed to show people ignoring pleas to social distance—people sitting close to one another and others standing in lines right next to one another. Politicians and others concluded from the photos that more restrictions were needed because of the virus.
Two Danish photographers noticed the pictures and doubted the conclusions people were drawing. So, they did an experiment taking snapshots with a regular lens, and then with a telephoto lens. Their results were fascinating. See below, the same pictures taken with different lenses and slightly different angles:
The article is not about “fake news.” The photos in the media were real and accurate--not doctored, not photo-shopped. But the story does show how one “piece of information,” in this case a snapshot, can lead us to make wrong interpretations of a situation.
The "piece of information" doesn't have to be a photo. Sometimes, it can be a word or a sentence. Often, we must look to the broader context in order to make the correct interpretation of what we see or hear.
Jesus in the Twitter feed It may seem strange, that the article with the pictures reminded me of Jesus’ cry, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani? My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?”
We are all familiar with these words of Jesus dying on the cross. They’re accurate. The gospels of Matthew and Mark record it. And it reflects everything we can imagine that the Son of Man must have felt as he faced a humiliating death exposed to the world. In that cry, we see a picture of Jesus. Abandoned. Confused. Anguished.
However, if we do not understand the broader context of this picture of Jesus, just like in the media, we can easily make the wrong interpretation.
I admit, this snapshot of Jesus can be confusing. Jesus did cry out these words. At the same time, it doesn’t ring true that Jesus would question whether he was being abandoned. He knew he would face exactly this kind of death—he had told his disciples this on several occasions. When he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane for God to remove “this cup,” he did sweat drops of blood. But he also trusted God and accepted “this cup” when he said “Not my will, but Your will be done.” On the cross, he is simply living through what he imagined in the garden.
So what was Jesus actually saying?
Enter the broader context of Psalm 22 Rabbis and biblical scholars did not assign numbers to the Psalms until years after Jesus’ death. Until then, each Psalm was known and identified by its first sentence-- just like we immediately think of Psalm 23 when we hear, “The Lord is my Shepherd”.
Psalm 22 begins with this line, Eli, Eli, lema sabachtani. This leads me to believe that Jesus was not, in fact, uttering a desperate cry of abandonment. Certainly, he must have felt isolated and confused. But I think he said those words to reference the entire chapter of Psalm 22, proclaiming its prophetic words and the truth about who God is.
The broader context beyond the snapshot of Jesus on the cross crying “My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?” provides a truer picture of our Messiah and a clearer path for us as we follow him. Just like the images of the Danish photographer, a wider lens gets us closer to the truth. The fuller picture: what Jesus proclaimed when he cried, My God, My God…
Psalm 22 has two main points: God prophesied that the Messiah would be crucified the exact way as Jesus; and, the Messiah provides the way for us to face situations that seem hopeless---to hold onto and to openly proclaim the awesome faithfulness of God.
Read Psalm 22, and we see the details of what Jesus was proclaiming, holding onto, as he hung on the cross.
Let’s look at more verses of what Psalm 22 prophecies about the crucifixion of the Messiah: * All sneered at him. (v 7) * He was mocked to “save yourself”. (v 8) * They pierced his hands and feet. (v 16) * Not a bone within him was broken. (v 17) * They divided his garments and threw lots. (v 18) * Lastly, parallel to John’s notable final of Jesus “It is finished”, It is done! (v 31)
Let’s look at what Psalm 22 says about who God is:
* You are holy. You can be trusted. You do not disappoint (v 3)
* You are sovereign and kept me from my mother's womb until now (vs 9-10)
* You are close, not far off. You are my help (v 19)
* You do not hide your face from the afflicted. You hear our cries (v 24)
* All the families of the earth will bow down to You (v 27)
* You rule over all the nation (v 28)
* It is finished. **You have done it!** (v 31)
In the midst of dying on the cross, anguished, confused, humiliated, Jesus made a powerful proclamation. He knew the character of His Father in heaven. He also knew His father was, is and will always be who He is—regardless what external circumstances surround us or even what we feel inside. As we see more clearly this picture of Jesus on the cross, Jesus in his worst moment of despair, we can choose to follow in his ways and hold onto and proclaim what we believe to be true about God, regardless of our circumstances. A action-belief calibration: