Psalm 22 and the God Who Hides | The Wonder of Scripture with Rosalynde Welch

Where is God when He feels absent? In this profound and moving lecture, Rosalynde F. Welch explores one of the most honest and haunting questions in scripture—divine hiddenness—and shows how sacred texts, especially the Psalms, become a space where God is not absent, but encountered through interpretation. Beginning with a striking rabbinic story about Onkelos, Welch reframes our modern spiritual condition as an “age of divine subtlety,” where God is not overwhelmingly present, but revealed through the interpretive act of reading scripture. Focusing on Psalm 22—the very psalm Jesus quotes on the cross—she uncovers: Why the Psalms give voice to both anguish and faith at the same time How the absence of God in scripture can actually create space for revelation The hidden literary structure that moves from lament to praise How readers themselves step into that gap and participate in meaning-making Welch then turns to the Gospel of Mark, showing how Psalm 22 is woven into the crucifixion narrative—not just as fulfillment, but as interpretation. She explores multiple layers of meaning: A Christological reading, where the psalm becomes a prophecy of Christ’s suffering A soteriological reading, where Christ enters into humanity’s deepest suffering And finally, a revelatory reading, where even Christ Himself uses scripture to encounter the presence of the Father in a moment of total abandonment In one of the lecture’s most powerful insights, Welch suggests that scripture itself holds open a space—a gap between lament and praise—where readers, like Christ, can meet God. The veil is torn not just in the temple, but in the text. This lecture is an invitation to read differently: Not just to learn from scripture, but to enter it, wrestle with it, and discover God within it.