On average, we listen to 2.5 hours a day to music, some more, some less. Music informs our existence more than we know, it helps shape our identities and it gives us the words to articulate how we understand, among other things, the world, God and ourselves. Music offers wisdom, and wisdom we are called to attend.
Sometimes I feel Like I don't have a partner Sometimes I feel Like my only friend Is the city I live in The city of angel Lonely as I am Together we cry
I drive on her streets cause shes my companion I walk through her hills cause she knows who I am She sees my good deeds And she kisses me windy I never worry Now that is a lie
I don't ever want to feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way
Its hard to believe That there's nobody out there Its hard to believe That I'm all alone At least I have her love The city she loves me Lonely as I am Together we cry
I don't ever want to feel Like I did that day Take me to the place I love Take me all the way
Under the bridge downtown Is where I drew some blood Under the bridge downtown I could not get enough Under the bridge downtown Forgot about my love Under the bridge downtown I gave my life away
1. What are some words that come to mind about the video?
2. What images in the video do you relate to?
3. What images in the video do you think Jesus relates to? (Where is Jesus in the video?)
4. How does Jesus' cry, Jesus' use of Psalm 22 echo your own?
Here are some words on Psalm 22:
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
This cry from Jesus’ lips echoes the cries of the faithful throughout human history. It is an ancient and anguished complaint to God because God is silent and absent in a time of great personal distress, for Jesus this comes on the cross.
Jesus takes up the ancient cry of Israel whose psalms arose within the experience of worship. The psalms foster individual prayer, communal praise, private reflection and learned instruction; they provide a window through which ancient Israel’s response to God’s presence or absence may be viewed; and they give voice to our prayers and praise today.
When Jesus uses Psalm 22, a psalm used to express grief at God’s absence in the face of unknown causes, Jesus asks, “My God, my God, why? Why the cross, why the suffering, why the humiliation? My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Forsake is not a common word anymore. To forsake is to renounce or turn away from entirely, to abandon, to desert. Forsakenness carries with it a sense of absence, or a loss of the intensity that presence brings. Jesus still calls out, “My God, my God,” Jesus doesn’t doubt that God is God or that God is real, Jesus questions God’s silence at his time of need.
While God’s presence to Jesus diminishes in intensity on the cross, God’s presence in and for Jesus, as well as for the whole of creation, remains intact, and at what seems its weakest, is stronger than ever before and ever since. One can gather from Jesus’ cry that this presence remains hidden from Jesus.
But the cross is the time and place where God’s everlasting will for salvation is carried out, amidst great silence the cries of Alleluia are born.
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