Author: Administrador

We enter Holy Week hearing “Hosannas” from the crowd and move from triumphal entry into Jerusalem to the cross of humiliation. The words of our Psalm for today have a very familiar ring. These verses will not let us go for they bring us to the cry of Jesus and the agony of death by … Continue reading “Psalm 31:9-16 Commentary by Paul S. Berge”

The Psalms enrich preaching during Holy Week and Easter, even if few preachers base an entire sermon on the Psalms. Jesus prayed the Psalms from the cross, and the Gospels quote the Psalms to tell of Jesus’ passion. Strong liturgical traditions invoke the Psalms during Holy Week and Easter. Most important, at a season when … Continue reading “Psalm 31:9-16 Commentary by Nancy Koester”

If your congregation plans to highlight the Sunday of the Passion (instead of Palm Sunday), spending some time with this Psalm will benefit your preaching. While I usually encourage interpreting a Psalm on its own terms instead of through the lens of the gospel text, this week is different. Since preachers will likely not choose … Continue reading “Psalm 31:9-16 Commentary by Shauna Hannan”

Three psalms in particular have served as a treasure trove of evocative imagery for the Gospel writers’ renditions of the crucifixion. Jesus’ cry of dereliction, quoting the opening words of Psalm 22 (Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46 in Aramaic) is the best known, but the derisive wagging of heads, sarcastic mocking of Jesus’ trust in God, … Continue reading “Psalm 31:9-16 Commentary by Mark Throntveit”

Psalm 31 is one of three psalms that appear prominently in the story of Jesus’ passion. For the Gospel writers this psalm, along with Psalms 22 and 69, seems to have expressed better than any other passages the nature of Jesus’ suffering and his emotional turmoil while being rejected, betrayed, and crucified. Psalm 31 appears … Continue reading “Psalm 31:9-16 Commentary by Jerome Creach”

“Our senses attach all the scorn, all the revulsion, all the hatred that our reason attaches to crime, to affliction … (E)verybody despises the afflicted to some extent, although practically no one is conscious of it.”1 Simone Weil’s description of the social degradation of affliction reflects with devastating precision the experience of the speaker in … Continue reading “Psalm 31:9-16 Commentary by Elizabeth Webb”

Today marks the beginning of Holy Week, a time in the Christian calendar when we journey with Christ to the cross, remembering Christ’s suffering for our sake as well as our own dying with Christ in the waters of baptism. Holy week can be a time for reorienting ourselves again to the ways of the … Continue reading “Psalm 31:9-16 Commentary by Amanda Benckhuysen”

The last words that Jesus spoke from the cross, according to Luke, were taken from this psalm: “Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:46; see Psalm 31:5).  The last words of Stephen before he died as a … Continue reading “Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 Commentary by James Limburg”

Psalm 31, along with Psalms 22 and 69, is among the longest and most impressive of the genre known variously as lament, complaint, protest, and/or prayer for help. Not coincidentally, these three psalms figure prominently in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ passion (see below). Like Psalm 22 in particular, Psalm 31 has a noticeable double … Continue reading “Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16 Commentary by J. Clinton McCann”

For centuries, Christians have found the book of Psalms to be a powerful resource for all dimensions of life — the highs, the lows, and all the places in between. The two dominant kinds of psalms are laments and psalms of praise, reflecting the lows and highs of life. Most of the psalms in the … Continue reading “Psalm 30 Commentary by W. H. Bellinger, Jr.”