Today is Day 15 of our 40 day journey through the season of Lent. I'm glad you're here!
Day 15
Our passage of Scripture today is Psalm 22 ...
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning? 2 My God, I cry by day, but You do not answer, by night, yet I have no rest. 3 But You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. 4 Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted, and You rescued them. 5 They cried to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disgraced.
6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by people. 7 Everyone who sees me mocks me; they sneer and shake their heads: 8 “He relies on the Lord; let Him rescue him; let the Lord deliver him, since He takes pleasure in him.”
9 You took me from the womb, making me secure while at my mother’s breast. 10 I was given over to You at birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.
11 Do not be far from me, because distress is near and there is no one to help.
12 Many bulls surround me; strong ones of Bashan encircle me. 13 They open their mouths against me— lions, mauling and roaring. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed; my heart is like wax, melting within me. 15 My strength is dried up like baked clay; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You put me into the dust of death. 16 For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet. 17 I can count all my bones; people look and stare at me. 18 They divided my garments among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothing.
19 But You, Lord, don’t be far away. My strength, come quickly to help me. 20 Deliver my life from the sword, my only life from the power of these dogs. 21 Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen.
22 I will proclaim Your name to my brothers; I will praise You in the congregation. 23 You who fear Yahweh, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor Him! All you descendants of Israel, revere Him! 24 For He has not despised or detested the torment of the afflicted. He did not hide His face from him but listened when he cried to Him for help.
25 I will give praise in the great congregation because of You; I will fulfill my vows before those who fear You. 26 The humble will eat and be satisfied; those who seek the Lord will praise Him. May your hearts live forever!
27 All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord. All the families of the nations will bow down before You, 28 for kingship belongs to the Lord; He rules over the nations. 29 All who prosper on earth will eat and bow down; all those who go down to the dust will kneel before Him— even the one who cannot preserve his life. 30 Their descendants will serve Him; the next generation will be told about the Lord. 31 They will come and tell a people yet to be born about His righteousness— what He has done.
Did you recognize the words spoken in verse 1? And then do a double-take when you realised this verse is in Psalms, not in one of the Gospels?
This is fascinating Psalm! While David was recounting a time of his own suffering, he was also prophetically describing the redemptive suffering of Christ on the cross thousands of years later!!
It's interesting to consider that Jesus would have read or heard this psalm many times in His life during worship at the temple. He had no doubt memorised, for it to come so readily to His mind when He was on the cross.
This Psalm made me contemplate what Jesus' life must have been like ... As God, He knew what He was going to face in His final days, and (to my mind), would have been justified had He spent His life in fear or dread.
How many of us are limited or even paralysed by fear and anxiety over things we can't even see, or are possibly only imagining??!!
But instead, like David before Him, Jesus clung on to what He knew was true: God is holy, God is His God, and God has been trustworthy throughout His life.
And then, based on these truths, David appeals to God to stay close to him (v 11). I want to encourage us to do the same. When stress or doubt try to strangle us and choke our faith, may we instead cling to the promises and faithfulness of God!
Unlike David, though, Jesus knew that the greatest suffering He would face would be abandonment by God, so that God would never abandon His people.
I love how David finishes the psalm - on with praise and a note of triumph: in verse 21 he writes about the people praising God for answering David's prayer, even when in the present moment, nothing in his situation has changed.
In the same way, Jesus stayed to the end, bore our sins, and purchased our reconciliation with God.
Because Jesus really was completely forsaken by God - on our behalf - we can be confident that we will never be abandoned, even if, in our suffering, God seems far away or silent when we call out.
The messianic nature of this psalm becomes clear as David declares that all generations, past, present, and future, will all come to know that his God is a God who delivers His people from suffering.
Let's pray during this season of Lent that the Father would strengthen our faith to truly believe that He will never leave or forsake us, especially when we think we have reasons to doubt His Word.