Pope Benedict put his profound knowledge of Scripture to work in identifying the Old Testament texts used by the evangelists when writing of Christ’s crucifixion. Chief among them, spanning the entire Passion narrative, were Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 (Jesus of Nazareth: From the Entrance into Jerusalem to the Resurrection, 204). Isaiah 53, with its extended prophecy of the Lord’s Suffering Servant, was quickly recognized by the early Church as a prophetic portrait of Jesus: Like a lamb led to the slaughter, the Servant/Jesus maintained his silence before His accusers (v. 7). He was “despised and rejected by men” (v. 3); he was considered “smitten by God, and afflicted,” but he was truly “wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities. . .and with his stripes we are healed” (v. 4-5). He made “himself an offering for sin” (v. 10), and bore the iniquities of God’s people (v. 11). Because of His vicarious suffering, God promised to vindicate His Servant and make many righteous through the Servant’s action (v. 10-12). Psalm 22 represents the cry of the righteous sufferer as he is surrounded by a crowd seeking his ruin. It’s middle portion is especially applicable to Christ, “a company of evil doers encircle me; / they have pierced my hands and feet – / I can count all my bones – / . . . they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots” (22:16-18). The mocking crowd is even reminiscent of those mocking Christ Crucified, “He committed his cause to the LORD: let him deliver him, / let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (22:8). The Psalm’s opening line was also quoted by Jesus from the Cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (22:1). As a psalm sung during the celebratory meal accompanying todah, or thanksgiving, sacrifices the also looked ahead to God’s deliverance of the afflicted. The Eucharist (thanksgiving) is Christ’s todah which He celebrates with the Church.
There are other portions of Scripture which, as Benedict points out, were also woven into the Passion narratives (From the Entrance, 203, 210, 219-20). Matthew saw the Book of Wisdom take flesh in the derision of the crowd, “He calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father. Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life; for if the righteous man is God’s son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries. Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance. Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected” (Wis 2:16-20; cf., Mt 27:40-43). The Synoptics and John also note Christ’s praying of two other psalms appropriate for todah celebrations: Psalm 69:21, Ps 31:5. John also noted how Christ’s death fulfilled Exodus 12:46 regarding the prohibition against breaking the bones of the Passover Lamb and Zechariah 12:10, “They shall look on him whom they have pierced.”
The evangelists weave Scripture so deftly into their recounting of Christ’s passion that it has caused some critics to accuse them of creating the story of Jesus’s death from the OT texts. The ridiculous accusation was answered quite deftly by Pope Benedict: “It was not the words of Scripture that prompted the narration of facts: rather, it was the facts themselves at first unintelligible, that paved the way toward a fresh understanding of Scripture” (From the Entrance, 203). While the Dead Sea Scrolls inform us that some first-century Jews were expecting two Messiahs – one priestly and the other kingly – no one was looking for a Crucified Messiah. It was inconceivable to the Jewish mind – as was the Incarnation. It was only after the apostles came face-to-face with the resurrected Jesus that they were forced to read Scripture with new eyes and see Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection prophesied and foreshadowed throughout its text. The story sounds so “foolish” to the worldly mind, that only the Divine could conceive of the Cross as the means of the world’s salvation (1 Cor 1:18-25)!
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Shane Kapler is a board member of the Image of God Institute. He is a Catholic author and speaker and can be found online at ExplainingChristianity.com