Mein Gott, mein Gott, wozu hast du mich verlassen?«

In his Preface to the Psalter from 1528, Martin Luther famously describes the Psalms as the Bible in miniature. The accolade is affirmed in the New Testament's reception of the Psalms, with one impressive example of this being the Gospel of Mark (Mk 14,1-16,8) and its three main narratives of the last supper, Jesus' prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, and the description of the Crucifixion with Christ's imploration of »why?« in Mk 15,34 / Ps 22,2a. By directing his question to the divine »you« in the midst of being forsaken by God, Christ expresses the tension between God's absence and presence. His cry from the cross is not to be understood as a naked protest against being abandoned, but rather as an attempt to rebuild a trust that emphasizes the hope of possible change.

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