“ … when they came to a place called Golgotha (which means Place of a Skull), they offered [Jesus] wine to drink, mixed with gall; but when He tasted it, He would not drink it. And when they had crucified Him, they divided His clothes among themselves by casting lots; then they sat down there and kept watch over Him. Over His head they put the charge against Him, which read: ‘This is Jesus, the King of the Jews.’
“Then two bandits were crucified with Him, one on His right and one on His left. Those who passed by derided Him, shaking their heads and saying, ‘You who would destroy the Temple and build it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’ In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking Him, saying, ‘He saved others; He cannot save Himself. He is the King of Israel; let Him come down from the cross now, and we will believe in Him. He trusts in God; let God deliver Him now, if he wants to; for He said, ‘I am God’s Son.’
“From noon on, darkness came over the whole land, until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:32-46).
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1). Jesus had only to quote the opening line of Psalm 22 because Psalm 22 was a well-known psalm … and for good reason as we’re about to find out.
It is often tempting to read Psalm 22 and try to interpret it as a prediction of Jesus’ life and trials … and maybe it was but that was not what David was thinking about when he wrote it. When David wrote this psalm, he knew nothing about Jesus. He knew nothing about the things that Jesus would have to go through. He was thinking about his own life, his own trials and struggles, his own doubts and fears. What makes this psalm so powerful is its honesty and its humanity … something that Jesus could relate to hanging there on the cross. In relating to the sentiment in David’s song of suffering and hope, Jesus could relate to our song of suffering and of hope.
Psalm 22 is a powerful lament that takes us down into the deepest pain of human suffering and then lifts us up to the highest joy that is found in the universal recognition of God’s kingdom. Dying on the cross, Jesus not only felt physical pain but felt the deepest pain and suffering of humanity as the result of taking on our sin and brokenness upon Himself. After His death He ascended to the heights of Heaven, where He is “enthroned” by our praises and the praises of His Father and all of Heaven. His pain, His suffering on the cross … His death and resurrection … should cause us to overflow with so much joy that our praises fill the heavens, amen?
Psalm 22 is a prayer that begins with fear and doubt but ends with the hope and expectation that the psalmist’s prayer will be heard and answered … even before the prayer is answered. It starts out, as all our prayers should … by acknowledging the Presence and reality of the Living God and acknowledging the personal relationship that we have with God … “MY” God. Two little words … “my God” … words that we say all the time … yet it is a powerful way for David to start what I call his “lament of hope.”
It is an interesting way for David to start his prayer. By calling God “his” God, he is not only reminding himself of the relationship that he has with God but the relationship that God has with him … and yet … David cries out that his God has forsaken him. “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” God is silent. “O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, and by night, but find no rest” (Psalm 22:2). David asks God why He is so far away from his groaning. The Hebrew suggests that God is physically far away from David … so far away that He can’t hear David’s groaning … and the word that David uses for “groaning” literally means “to growl and roar like a lion.” This is not a man whimpering and groveling … this is a man who is roaring like a lion from the depths of his anger and despair. His anguish and his despair not only come from his suffering and intolerable circumstance but from his anguish and despair over the fact that God is so far from him … that God does not answer him when he growls and roars from his anguish and despair day and night.
Why does David expect an answer to his prayers … his petitions? Because of those two little words: “My God.” The reason that David could say those words, the reason that we can say those two little words, is because God entered into a covenant with Israel and with us. “ I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you” (Genesis 17:7). David is reminding God that He has an obligation to take care of him just as David has an obligation to keep God’s law. David is a righteous man who loves God and obeys God … and God, if He is righteous and loves David and wishes to honor the covenant that He made with David, should show His love for His righteous servant by answering David’s prayers and rescuing him from his terrible plight. The fact that God and David have a covenantal relationship … the fact that David feels that he’s kept up his end of the bargain … is why David feels he has the right to demand that God keep up His end of the bargain just as he, David, has kept up his end of the bargain. But God is silent … God appears to be far away … physically and emotionally and spiritually.
And yet, while David fears that God may have given up on him, he still has hope and faith in God. “Yet,” says David in verse 3. “Yet” is a word of hope … as in: “What I need, what I’m praying for hasn’t happened … yet … still, I believe that You, LORD, are going to hear me and to answer my prayers,” says David, “because You, LORD, are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” Why does Israel enthrone God with praises? Because He is their God and they are the people of His pasture, the flock under His care (Psalm 95:7). It is a poor shepherd, indeed, that lets the sheep wander off or be attacked by predators. A shepherd who allows that to happen is, in fact, no shepherd at all. God is enthroned with the praises of Israel because He has heard their prayers and He has answered them and protected them and taken care of them.
“In You our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and You delivered them. To You, they cried, and were not put to shame” (Psalm 22:4-5). David uses the word “trusted” three times in verses 4 and 5. As David points out to God, Israel put their trust “in You, LORD” … they trusted “You” … they cried out to “You” and they were saved. They put their trust in “You, LORD” and they were not put to shame.
And yet! David cries out to God and God is silent. He roars in his pain and suffering and yet God is far away … and he wonders why. “Many others have cried out to You and You saved them, why not me? Am I not an Israelite and as much a child of the covenant as all those other Jews whose prayers You have heard and answered? I guess not. I guess I’m a worm … less than a human. Either I am so small and insignificant that You overlook me and answer everyone else’s prayers, or You only answer some people’s prayers but not everyone’s prayers. My ancestors trusted You and You delivered them. They cried out to You and You saved them. I cry out to You … I shout … I scream … I growl … I roar … and nothing. Why?”
In fact, David claims that part of the reason that he’s been scorned and despised by the people who are mocking him is because, in fact, of his deep trust and faith in the Lord. The literal translation of verse 8 is, “Roll your cause to the Lord! Let the Lord deliver him; let [God] rescue him, because [God] delights in the him.” We hear the same cruel sarcasm in the taunts and ridicule that the passers-by and the priests and elders used to try and shame Jesus. “He trusts in God,” they laugh, “let God deliver Him now, if He wants to; for He said, ‘I am God’s Son’” (Matthew 27:43) … “if He wants to.” Since God didn’t rescue Jesus from the cross, it must have meant that God didn’t want to in the minds of His tormentors and detractors and that Jesus’ trust in God was wasted and that His claim to be the “Son of God” was not true. In David’s case, his detractors are also suggesting that David’s trust in God was wasted and that his past claims that God “delighted” in him were also untrue.
But God did delight in him … like a mother loves the child that she just gave birth to … only God and David’s relationship goes much deeper than a relationship between a mother and her child. Verses 9 and 10 describe God as both a mid-wife and a mother. “Yet it was You who took me from the womb.” In other words, God “delivered” David like a mid-wife delivers a child. A mid-wife is responsible for the birth and safety of the child. Like a mid-wife, God is responsible for his life and therefore God and David have a special bond … but it goes deeper than that … much deeper. Just as the mid-wife places the baby on the mother’s chest so that it can nurse … David says that he was “cast” upon God and that he counted on God to keep him safe and secure from the time of his birth up until this present moment. And yet, unlike a mother who immediately responds to her child’s cries of pain and anguish, God is silent when it comes to him. As Bible scholar William Brown explains it, the image of motherly love “conveys the intimacy of God’s caring presence, so palpably real in the psalmist’s past but jarringly absent in the present.” David’s deeply personal and intimate connection to God only serves to heighten David’s sense of abandonment by God. It’s one thing when a stranger ignores you but a whole lot more painful and significant when your own mother ignores you … and a million times worse when God ignores you, amen?
David is not ready to give into his despair … “since my mother bore me YOU have been my God” (Psalm 22:10) … “my” God … who seems to have forsaken me “My” God who seems to be so far from helping me (v. 1). David prays and pleads with God. “Do not be far from me for trouble is near me and there is no one to help” (v. 11). Why, God, are you so far from me when trouble is so near … closing in on me? “Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Basham surround me; they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion” (v. 12). David roars to God in verse 1 because he is surrounded by angry, ravenous evildoers who encircle him and want to pounce on him like a hungry, roaring lion.
I want you to freeze this picture in your mind. David … surrounded by strong bulls, pawing the ground … their heads down … ready to gorge or trample him to death. A lion is there … hungry … ready to pounce on him. He’s surrounded by a pack of dogs … circling around … waiting for their opportunity to leap upon him like a pack of wolves or hyenas. He is surrounded by vicious, ravenous animals … poised … ready to pounce … ready to attack him and tear him to pieces. If God were going to save him, now would be time, amen? “What are you waiting for, Lord? I need You … here … now! Wherever You are, I’m begging You to come to my aid just as fast as You can! I don’t have a second to spare here. Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! Save me from the mouth of the lion! From the horns of the wild oxen” (Psalm 22:19-21).
Clearly David is not surrounded by bulls and lions and dogs. He uses these images as a way to describe his enemies’ penchant for violence and to heighten the immediate and extreme danger that he is in. It is also a way for David to describe these human “evildoers” who seek to destroy him as savage and less than human. Sounds like verse 6 doesn’t it … where David describes himself as a worm and not human … a worm surrounded by evildoers whose behavior and desires are animalistic, savage, and less than human. David is a worm who needs a Deliverer who is not human … Someone … with a capital “S” … who can crush his enemies as if they were nothing more than worms, amen?
The longer that God stays away, the worse things get for David. “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws” (Psalm 22:14-15). It has reached the point where David can no longer roar, is no longer able to shout to the Lord in his pain and suffering because of his pain and suffering, which is causing him to waste away and get weaker and weaker by the moment. In fact, David accuses God of laying him in “the dust of death” (v. 15). Like water and melted wax, David’s life is flowing from him. He is almost dead … and he blames God … not his enemies … for his condition. If David is suffering and wasting away, it’s not because his enemies act like ferocious animals but because God is doing nothing about them and allowing them to surround him and act like ferocious animals. If God heard his roaring for help and answered him, if God were not far away but right there with him, then there wouldn’t be anything to constantly worry about and he wouldn’t have to feel like poured out water and his heart wouldn’t be melting like wax from fear. If David’s enemies defeat him, if the evildoers that surround him prevail and have their way, it’s because God let them. Wow, huh?
In fact, they are not only waiting to attack David … they already have. “I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; they divide my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Psalm 22: 17-18). What David is describing is a man who is the victim of a band of highway men or robbers who have attacked him and are assuming that he’s already dead … just as the soldiers assumed that Jesus was as good as dead … and in fact would die … and began throwing dice and dividing up Jesus’ clothing.
But David is not dead and neither is his hope and trust in God. No matter how bad the situation appears to be, David is absolutely positive that God can and will come to his rescue. Look carefully at verse 21: “From the horns of the wild oxen You have saved me.” Hum. David doesn’t say “From the horns of the wild oxen You may one day save me.” He says that God has saved Him … even if he is still facing dogs and lions and bulls. Right now … right at that moment … surrounded by ravenous wild beasts and evildoers … God can save him … God will save him … and the thought of that, the hope of that, the certainty that God can and will deliver him causes him to go from praying in desperation to giving thanks and singing God’s praises. He can trust God because God is righteous … because God is holy. David can trust God because his ancestors trusted God and He delivered them. He can trust God because God has been like a mid-wife and mother to him … delivering him and keeping him safe and secure since the day that his biological mother gave birth to him. He can trust God because God is God and God has made a covenant with His people and God, unlike human beings, will honor and keep up His end of the bargain even if we don’t, amen?
And so, God may not be listening but his fellow Jewish brothers and sisters are, amen? Instead of “counting” his bones, David is going to “re-count” his blessings and the mighty deeds that God has done on his behalf and on the behalf of His people. I want you to notice something, however. Throughout David’s prayer, his conversation was with God … and even though David will re-count his blessings in the midst of the congregation, he is still speaking to God. “I will tell of Your name to my brothers and sisters; in the midst of the congregation I will praise You” (Psalm 22:22). Think about it. When we pray, we talk to who? Or should I say “whom”? We speak to God, am I right? And when we praise God, we speak to God also.
When David says that he will tell of God’s name to his brothers and sisters and praise God’s name in the midst of the congregation, what has he just done? He’s made a promise. He’s entered into a covenant with God … who is supposed to be far away and deaf to his prayers. Why make a promise or enter into a covenant with God if He is deaf and far away, right? David made a promise to tell of God’s name to his brothers and sisters and to praise Him in the midst of the congregation because he knew in his heart of hearts that God could hear him and that God could never be too far away no matter where in the universe He was. In fact, the Hebrew suggests that David is absolutely certain that God heard him make this promise just as surely as he was certain that God would hear him keep his promise when he praised Him in the midst of the congregation … just as he was certain that God had heard his petitions and pleas and prayers contrary to how things might appear at the moment.
He then commands … his brothers and sisters in the congregation … to join him in praising God. “You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him, stand in awe of Him, all you offspring of Israel” (Psalm 22:23) … trust in the LORD and enthrone God in your praises just as our ancestors did. Cry out to God like they did and He will deliver us just as He delivered our ancestors.
Verse 24 is an anticipatory hymn … meaning that it praises God for what God will do before He’s done it. To praise God for what He “will” do is an act of trust and a declaration of faith. “You who fear the LORD, praise Him!” says David (Psalm 22:23). Why? Because He did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted (v. 24). “All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him, stand in awe of Him, all you offspring of Israel” says David (v. 23). Why? Because He does not hide His face from us but hears us when we cry to Him (v. 24). Whoa! Look at verse 24 again. Did you hear what David just said? God did not hide His face from him and what? “Heard” him when he cried out! Quite a change from “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?” (v. 1).
He goes from being scorned and mocked in verse 6 to no longer a worm despised by God … certain that God will no longer hide from him or ignore his prayers and pleas for help. He has gone from groaning and roaring and praying all day and hearing nothing to being convinced that God does hear his cry because he knows that he is no longer forsaken by God and probably never was.
We’ve looked at what hardship is from a Biblical perspective. We’ve looked at why hardship happens. And today we are looking at what to do when hardship happens. David’s answer to that question is found in the last nine verses of his song. The tone or tense of David’s song changes. The language that he uses is commanding. “You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify Him; stand in awe of Him, all you offspring of Israel” (Psalm 22:23). His call to praise God begins with the poor … who will be fed and satisfied (v. 26) … and then He expands his command to praise God to include kings and nations … the entire earth, in fact. He then commands the generations who have passed away and future generations yet to be born to turn to the LORD and praise Him for what He has done and for what He will yet do. Think about that for moment. David goes from his present circumstance … despairing that God is far away or has turned His back on him to praising God for what He has yet to do and for what He will do in the future for his children’s children long after he’s long gone. He goes from bemoaning the fact that God answered the prayers of his ancestors and not his … to celebrating and worshiping with his brothers and sisters in the midst of the congregation … to praising God for the His blessings and deliverance of future generations of Israelites who have yet to be born.
What do you do when life is swallowing you up? You pray. You call out to the LORD … and you keep calling out … day and night. And when it appears that God is not answering your prayers and those doubts begin to creep into your mind because nothing is happening, you remind yourself, as David did, of the times when God answered your prayers in the past … you remember the times when God answered the prayers of your ancestors … you remember the times when God answered the prayers of your family and friends … you remember the times when God answered the prayers of your brothers and sisters at church. Despite what your mind is telling you, you listen to your heart … you put your trust and faith in God who has promised to never leave you nor forsake you. God has made a covenant with us … an everlasting covenant … to be our God … and as His people we must remember that. Jesus made a covenant with us.
“When the hour came, Jesus and His apostles reclined at the table. And He said to them, ‘I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it finds fulfillment in the kingdom of God.’
“After taking the cup, He gave thanks and said, ‘Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.’
“And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me.’
“In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you’” (Luke 22:14-20).
“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you” (John 14:15-17).
There is a saying going around these days … you may have heard it … it says “act as if …”. In other words, you do what you know to be right even if your mind is trying to stop you by telling you all kinds of ridiculous nonsense. Let’s say a person was rude to you or embarrassed you … maybe even ripped you off. Your natural urge would be to cut them out of your life or snub them in the future. Instead, you “act as if” … you act as if they haven’t done you any harm even though you are seething inside to get even with them. Instead, you’re nice to them, you bump elbows with them, you treat them warmly and kindly. You act as if you have forgiven them while you continue to pray for them until you actually do forgive them. What David is suggesting in Psalm 22 is that we “pray as if.” Prayer is like a hen sitting on an egg. You can’t see anything happening but there’s a lot of things going on inside the egg that you can’t see and it is changing and evolving all the time. So it is with prayer. David assumed that God was far away. David assumed that God had turned a deaf ear to his prayers. David assumed that God wasn’t going to do anything about his situation because his situation didn’t seem to be changing. He assumed that the fault was with God. And then he realized to whom he was praying:
• “… the poor shall eat” (v. 26) … Jehovah Jireh … God, My Provider
• “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD” (v. 27) … Adonai … King of kings and Lord of lords
• “… and all the families of the nations shall worship before Him” (v. 27) … El Elyon … God Most High
• “For dominion belongs to the LORD, and He rules over the nations” (v. 28) … Jehovah Sabaoth … Supreme Commander-in- Chief of all the Forces of Heaven and Earth
• “To Him indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before Him shall bow all who go down to the dust” (v. 29) … Yahweh … the Ever-changing Eternal One
• “Posterity will serve Him” (v. 30) … El Shaddai … God the All-Sufficient and Mighty One
This marvelous change happened because David’s focused shifted from himself to God. He goes from “My God, my God … why have you forsaken ME” in verse 1 to “My God, my God, from YOU comes my praise in the great congregation” in verse 25. Obviously I’m paraphrasing here, but when David “looks” to God, when David “looks” at God, when He remembers to whom He is praying, praise just flows. In fact, if you look closely at David’s song, you see or hear him constantly going back and forth between himself and God … alternating between God and me, You … meaning God … and I. “My God, my God, why have YOU forsaken ME? Why are YOU so far from helping ME, from the words of MY groaning?” (v. 1). “Yet it was YOU who took ME from the womb; YOU kept ME safe on my mother’s breast, and since my mother bore ME YOU have been my God” (v. 9-10). In the main part of his prayer, verses 12-18, he is totally focused on himself and his problems … with no mention of God. Then in verse 19, God comes back into the picture: “But YOU, O LORD, do not be far away!” If you look at David’s song of praise, verses 25 to 31, you’ll notice that he only mentions God and he, David, is no longer in the picture. He speaks of kings and nations that are far away from him … peoples and nations who have never heard of his name. He speaks of future generations … none of whom will ever meet him. His praise flows from his focus on God.
How true that is for us, amen? When we look at ourselves, when we look at our problems, our situation, they swallow us up. They are too big, too many, too much. But when we look at God, we are in awe. We are humbled. Our fears and our doubts pale in comparison and we draw strength and hope from our trust in God who is and was and ever will be, amen? Pastor and Evangelist George Mueller put it best when he said: “It is not enough to begin to pray, nor to pray alright; nor is it enough to continue for a time to pray; but we must patiently, believing, continue in prayer until we obtain an answer."
