The story of the lectionary runs from the pre-Christian synagogue to the new Roman Catholic Ordo and its variants in American Protestantism. Across the centuries those who fashioned lectionaries were seeking to provide inclusive, appropriate, and crucial sequences of readings from Scripture which opened its richness to the congregation.

Use of Psalm 22 through the pre-Christian centuries and critical analysis of our Gospels working back from them to Jesus meet in a picture of the cross as lament in suffering and thanksgiving for what God then did. To that extent, the intent of the psalm came to supreme expression in Jesus.