Victory Through Sorrow’s Deep Sea – Easter Message From A Poem – Part 3 Series

VICTORY THROUGH SORROW’S DEEP SEA – EASTER MESSAGE FROM A POEM – PART 3

This message will bring to an end our consideration of the events at Calvary relying on details from Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and Psalm 69 and the Gospels. I have based the messages on my poem called “Victory Through Sorrow’s Deep Sea.”

[[“Let Me not be swallowed by the deep. 22

Dishonour has covered My face;

And what I did not sow, that I reap.

They gave Me gall for my food in My case.”]]

The opening stanza for this message relates closely to the closing one for the last message, where we see the Lord on the cross in a place of separation, agony, comfortless and in rejection. We saw that He was forsaken of God and left to bear the wrath of God against sin alone. This is the opening for Psalm 69 – {{Psalm 69:1-2 “Save me, O God, for the waters have threatened my life. I have sunk in deep mire and there is no foothold. I have come into deep waters and a flood overflows me.”}} That Psalm is a Messianic one, i.e. it speaks of the Lord in those hours on the cross.

There was dishonor for all who were crucified, dishonor and shame and that was anticipated 1000 years before the time – {{Psalm 69:19 You know my REPROACH and my SHAME and my DISHONOUR. All my adversaries are before You.”}} The Apostle Paul speaks of the reproach – {{Romans 15:3 for even Christ did not please Himself but as it is written, “The reproaches of those who reproached You fell upon Me.”}}

None of us like being reproached, shamed, dishonoured, rejected, scorned and cruelly treated especially when we are innocent. Jesus certainly was innocent but He endured all that on the cross for us. {{Psalm 69:7 “because for Your sake I have borne reproach. Dishonour has covered my face.”}} Jesus did not sow sin but He reaped the penalty for sin. He was made sin for us. The guiltless sower became the sin-laden reaper.

[[“My clothes became the sackcloth of shame.”

The drunkards’ song His death inspired.

Gate-dwellers gossiped about His Name.

“We rejoice,” say those who conspired.]]

{{“Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely on account of Me.”}} (Matthew 5:11). That is what Jesus taught but He had to endure it Himself even on the cross. Mocking and slander were rife. The lines in the stanza are derived from these verses – {{Psalm 69:10-12 “When I wept in my soul with fasting, it became my reproach. When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate talk about me and I am the song of the drunkards.”}} A byword – that is what the Lord meant to the general populace that day of crucifixion and it is no different today. People curse with His name; they slander His name with blasphemies; they treat Him as irrelevant.

Jesus is my Saviour, the Lamb of God on the cross for me taking the merits of my horrible sin. Psalm 40 is another Messianic Psalm and contains this verse – {{Psalm 40:12 “for evils beyond number have SURROUNDED me. My iniquities have overtaken me, so that I am not able to see. They are more numerous than the hairs of my head and my heart has failed me.”}}

In the NASB the word “surrounded”; “encompassed” in the AV, means they have overwhelmed me like a flood (as the word in Jonah). The verse says “My iniquities have overtaken me” but I do not think David is talking about his own sin because that is out of context with the rest of the chapter. The Lord took MY iniquities and made them His. He owned them and paid the judgement for them. I am sure 40:12 fits the Calvary description perfectly.

[[“Answer Me for I am in distress.

Hide not Your face from Your Servant.”

The enemies’ mockings are ceaseless.

Their vile desires are fervent.]]

The Lord had no one to turn to in His great distress, no one except the Father, and He was not answered. In the following verse the day is day and the night is the three hours of darkness. {{Psalm 22:2 “O my God, I cry by day but You do not answer, and by night, but I have no rest.”}} We do not know these prayers from the cross in the New Testament because the description of Calvary is quite straightforward.

The particular verses that match the stanza are these – {{Psalm 69:17-18 “Do not hide Your face from Your servant, for I am in distress. Answer me quickly. Oh draw near to my soul and redeem it. Ransom me because of my enemies!”}} There is a comment a lot of people make that is not supported by the bible. These say, “The Father turned His face away,” when Christ was on the cross. The prayer says, “Do not hide Your face.” The Lord was forsaken by God but there is no support that God’s face was turned away.