What anchors your faith in God? What keeps you trusting in Him when life does not go how you thought? Sailors use anchors to stabilize their vassels when they dock so they do not drift away. Anchors ensure that despite the bobbing of the water, in the face of the wind, and even when a storm comes, the ship will not move. The same should be true in our spiritual lives; we need an anchor, something we can invite God into daily where we can be intimate with Him.
The crucifixion of Jesus is a part of Scripture I do not usually partake in exegetical work. I try to leave the crucifixion as it is and meditate on what the Lord did on behalf of all of God’s people. When I meditate on the cross I do have an understanding of the suffering and torture He went through—according to Torah, when a Jew was punished by another Jew he was to receive 39 lashes with a tod (Deuteronomy 25:3). But Jesus was not punished by His own; Rome punished Him and they did not follow Torah. There were three levels of flogging a person could receive by Romans based off their crime. Since Jesus was presented as an enemy of the state, He received the worst of the three. Part of what Jesus endured was having His head locked inside of a device where He could not move and all 62 soldiers who tortured Him could punch Him, spit on Him, and pull His beard off His face. He was flogged so severely that His bones and internal organs were exposed. He went into such a state of shock that He most likely did not feel the pain of having 72 thorns piercing into His skull, or the six inch nails piercing His wrists and ankles. Not to mention He was completely naked on the cross, and that is the ultimate shame for a Jewish man; only his wife should see a man’s nakedness, and for anyone else to do so brought that man shame.
Jesus died a vulnerable death, a death with no autonomy, He died a tortuous and humiliating death. Jesus died surrounded by His enemies and only five people who loved Him—the apostle John, His mother, one of His aunts, Mary Magdalene, and another woman named Mary. All who Jesus did good for, where were they? You can be there for as many people as you’d like to be, but when it’s you who are in trouble, you see who is truly there for you. Yet Jesus chose this road to walk. Why?
He was anchored.
The Jews practice something called anchoring prayer, and Jesus did too. It’s the prayer of your life. You pray it every morning, you pray it in times of trouble, you live this prayer, and you die this prayer. For the Jews you desired to be so close to God that you would use your last breath praying on of two things: the Shema: “Listen, O Israel, Yahweh alone is our God, Yahweh is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4), or you would pray your anchoring prayer. Jesus was so connected to the Father that He died teaching, preaching and most importantly, praying His anchoring prayer.
The words Jesus spoke on the cross were not simply words He spoke. Each time Jesus opened His mouth He prayed His anchoring prayer. Psalm 22 seemed to be the prayer Jesus prayed on the cross. Psalm 22 was an extensive psalm prayed by David when he was in trouble and it was soong that in our modern Bibles it’s chopped into pieces and into different psalms. Psalms 2, 21, 22, 23, and 31 were all one massive psalm and these are the psalms Jesus meditated on and for good reason. They are psalms that remind us of God’s presence and His power to deliver, and His love for those who trust Him.
How Jesus could choose to suffer the way He did to fulfill the will of God demonstrates the power of being anchored in God. Our authority comes from our surrender to His will. Psalm 22 opens with David feeling forsaken by God, yet in verse 4 he begins to praise God because He is holy and the one who traits Him will experience the joy of His presence. Jesus was not forsaken by His Father, nor are you and I. Crucizion was a shameful death, but God was not ashamed of Jesus. Jesus was mocked and humiliated, yet God glorified Him. Staying anchored in God seals the fact that we are cognizant of the steadfast, unfailing love of a good Father. No, not all of life is good and sometimes you have to take the bitter with the sweet, but God is true to His word and He is trustworthy.
Our challenge for today is to find our anchoring prayer. I say find because when we pray we do not have to come up wi th our own words; we can pray the Tezt. In the same way Jesus prayed Psalm 22 every day, find your Psalm. I started doing the same thing myself. Each morning I pray Psalm 121, during my lunch break I pray Psalm 91, and in the evenings I pray Psalm 139. There have also been seasons in my life where I would write my own prayers and if you choose this route, be as honest as possible with the Lord and tell Him how you feel. Be sure to end the prayer with promises of His presence, deliverance, and steadfast love for you because His love for you is much more real than what it is we are going through. Our temporary, light afflictions pale in comparison to the richness and beauty of the love God has for us. It is my prayer that if you decide to pray the Text, or create your own prayer, that you would be strengthened, encouraged, and in due season, exalted. Stay anchored, my friends
Until next time, continue to stay guided by grace,
Tra
Guided by Grace 