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Selected Psalms May 30th, 2010 Tom Fox Click here for Print Friendly Version! Audio Version Psalm 22 
ave you ever parked your car somewhere and then couldn’t find it? That can be a disorienting experience. I have been lost in every city that I have ever been in. The disorienting experiences of life are so common that an entire television series was about the subject—Lost. When I park my car and leave it while I shop, its like God says lets have a little fun and turn the world around and watch Tom hunt for his car. I walk around pushing the little horn button on the remote.
Some disorienting experiences are funny. Others can be extremely stressful, like loosing a kid in Walmart. Still other experiences confound the mind to the point of being totally incomprehensible, like finding yourself all alone, isolated with no human to show you compassion, and God responding in the same way. Such was David’s experience in Psalm 22, an experience that led him to feel as though God had forsaken him. Psalm 22 is a lament, a personal lament. To pinpoint the precise circumstances of David’s life that evoked such a strong lament is impossible. David may have composed the Psalm when Saul sought his life. David had been anointed king, but the road to the throne was fraught with peril. There is a parallel, type to antitype, between life of David and the life of Jesus. This psalm points us to Christ in both the agony of His sacrificial, substitutionary death on behalf of His own and His post-resurrection work through the church to the ends of the earth. Lament psalms are instructive for the church and the individual Christian. As Lee pointed out, laments make up the largest category of psalms in the Psalter, with nearly 70 psalms pressing into that genre. The Psalter itself is structured much like a lament, moving ultimately from lamentation to praise. The movement of the psalms from plea to praise mirrors the life of Christ and corporate life of the church. The pattern of Christ’s life was from suffering to glory, condescension to exaltation. The psalms are about Christ: “Everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Lk. 24.44). It is not hard to read Psalm 22 and hear and see Jesus on the cross. We hear the cry of dereliction of v1 from the mouth of Christ on the cross: “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psa 22:1; Mt. 27:46). We see his hands nailed to the cross. We hear the taunts of the Priests, scribes and elders, “He trusts God, let him deliver him” (22:8; Mt 27: 41-43). The psalm ends with He has done it, which echoes the Savior’s words, It is finished (Jn. 19:30). From beginning to end Psalm 22 points to the redemptive work of Christ. How could David have written so vividly about the Christ? In his Pentecost sermon, Peter said that David was a prophet “knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that He would set one of his descendants on this throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ…” (Acts 2:30-31). Psalm 22 also has application for the church. For example, in Acts the movement if from suffering to future hope. The biblical pattern is suffering then glory, suffering then reigning. “If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him.” The laments teach us what to lament and how to pray in disorienting circumstances. What should we lament? As Lee pointed out, laments are not whining, like the Israelites when they got tired of manna. Laments are called forth when the disorienting forces of this world threaten God’s redemptive purpose in the world through the church. His purpose in the world is His purpose for us. David knew that God wanted him to be king. He knew that God had promised that his throne would be established forever. He knew that His throne and God’s purpose were the same. He rightly lamented when that was threatened. That I want a four door F-150 and can’t afford it is not a matter of “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” That I want new set of golf clubs, a club membership, a golf cart and trailer, and that truck to pull it with is not a matter of lamentation. Ultimately, in the laments, what is at stake is the glory and reputation of God. If the King is destroyed by his enemies the promise of God fails, the redemptive purpose of God is thwarted. Some things should be lamented. We should lament that people now talk about having a bad church experience like they talk about having a bad father or bad marriage. We should lament that the Western church is so rich and unreached peoples remain. We should lament that so few institutions feel the weight of God in their dealings. We should lament that our children are yet unbelieving. We should lament that our culture has fallen to the point that the arguments of pagans against God’s place in our society are widely accepted by Christians—“We don’t want to offend anybody.” The laments teach us that occasion for lament is the common experience of the people of God through the ages. We are tempted to think that we have been singled out for trouble and that our situation is unique. Only the details are uniquely you. Reason for lament is the common experience of the saints. On the surface, it is reasonable to assume that when you have been anointed king, your days of trouble are over. You may even think that if you were the Son of God, you would be immune to all distress. If seasons of lament are the common experience of the saints, God must have a purpose in them. I don’t think that I can explain why, but I can make some observations. Seasons of lamentation bring repentance and renewal and growth. They refine our focus concerning what really matters. They give us the opportunity to point out to unbelievers where God is in the dark times in life. Like the book of Psalms, laments, with the exception of Psalm 44 and 88, move from plea to praise. The trajectory of Psalm 22 is utter despair to exuberant praise. Psalm 22 divides into major 2 sections. Verses 1-21, the lament section, tell us of the King’s distress. The lament section (vv1-21) moves back and forth between the psalmist’s horrible experience of suffering (vv1-2, 6-8, 12-18) and statements of confidence (vv3-5, 9-11), ending with a plea for help (vv19-21). Verses 22-31 show a dramatic reversal of events. The praise section (vv 22-31) shows the implication of God’s answer to the lament for Israel (vv22-26), the nations (vv27-29), and future generations (vv30-31) (Belcher, The Messiah and the Psalms, 167-8). The King’s Lament and a Dramatic Turn of Events vv1-31. The King’s Lament vv1-21 In the king’s lament, three actors are on stage: God, the psalmist, and the psalmist’s enemies. Notice how the sections begin: My God (v1), Yet you (v3), But I (v6), Yet you (v9), They (in verses 12-15 and 16-18 the shift is to the 3rd person), But you (v19). The psalmist is saying, You, me, and them. In our trouble, we have to reckon with God, ourselves, and others. That struggle can be seen in the psalmist in these verses. Ultimately, the struggle is with God. God is the ultimate actor in the saga of our lives. That is why the psalmist is crying out to God. The psalmist is under no impression that he can manipulate God in anyway, not by the eloquence of his words nor the excellence of his arguments. He also knows that if God acts in his behalf his enemies are finished. The psalmist is contending with God. The psalmist is hemmed in on all sides, and God has done it: You lay me in the dust of death (v15). In this lament, He casts himself on the mercy of God based on his understanding of who God is and what God is like. Complaint based on personal relationship with God vv1-2 and 3-5. Vv1-2 We do not want to miss the distress of the psalmist. His cry is a loud, sustained complaint before God. When he looks at the circumstances of his life, he can only come to one conclusion: God has forsaken him. He has prayed, begged, pleaded. And nothing. God has not responded at all. The personal relationship can be seen in the address, My God, in the consistency in prayer, and in the recounting of how God has worked in his life in the past. Vv3-5 The psalmist contrasts his experience of being abandoned by God with the fathers’ experience of deliverance. Yet you are holy. The holiness of God was seen in his deliverance of his people and heard as the theme of their praise. Three times the trust of the fathers is mentioned as the foundation of their deliverance. This is set against the three times the psalmist cries My God in relation to his abandonment. By faith, the fathers entered into a covenant relationship with God, and God delivered them. The psalmist had the same faith, but the outcome was different. David reminds God of His holiness and the seeming contradiction between rule of God and David’s current circumstances. Pleading the character of God is a great weapon in prayer. Complaint based on prior relationship with God vv6-8 and 9-11 What the psalmist was experiencing in his relation to God was contrary to anything that he had experienced in the past. Vv6-8 God is holy and enthroned in the praise of people, but David has lost all human dignity and is scorned, mocked, despised, and insulted by people. The thought is that if he really trusted God, he would not be suffering. God would deliver him. When God forsakes you and people turn against you, dignity is lost. Vv9-11 From his birth, the psalmist had known God’s involvement in his life. Based on a lifelong walk with God, David appeals for God not to forsake him. There is no other help. He will take the plea of v11 up again in v19. Complaint based on covenant relationship with God vv12-18 and 19-21 Vv12-18 These verses expand on the fact that there is no human help for the psalmist. David’s enemies are described as bulls, lions, and dogs and dogs, lions, and wild oxen in vv12-21. These metaphors capture the strength, pride, and ferociousness of his enemies, who are intent on destroying him. Vividly, these verses describe the toll David’s pursuers had on him. He was finished if God did not intervene. Vv19-21 In that context, David makes his plea. For the first time in the Psalm, he used the covenant Name, LORD. He is appealing to the covenant faithfulness of God. At the moment it may have looked as if the covenant promises of God would fail. Then suddenly God turned things around. David experienced a reversal of his circumstances. V21 says, You have rescued (answered) me. Just as the wild ox was about to gore him, the LORD rescued him from its horns. A dramatic turn of events 22-31 This final section of the psalm is dominated by praise and worship (note the repetition of these words) that spirals out to impact the nations and generations yet unborn. The psalmist is apparently fulfilling his vows with freewill offerings and great celebration (Deut. 12:17-19). Vv22-25 The psalmist himself and the congregation praise the Lord. No longer is the psalmist’s experience different from the people of God (vv3-5). No longer is he forsaken by God (vv1-2) and the object of scorn (vv6-8). No longer is he surrounded by his enemies (vv12-18), but now he is surrounded by the people of God. Vv26-31 Every category of humanity praises the Lord. Because of the declaration of the covenant faithfulness of the LORD, the psalmist expects that every category of humanity that he can think of will worship God: The psalmist himself (v22), the congregation of the Israelites (v23, 25), the poor (v26), the families of the nations (v27), the rich (v29), the dieing (v29), and posterity including the unborn (vv30-31). The point is that God’s covenant faithfulness is good news to every person in every circumstance of human existence. It is news that we need to preach to ourselves, to the church, the poor, the nations, the ethnic groups, the rich, the dieing, our children, and preserve for the unborn because they are going to need it. Jesus’ Lament and a Dramatic Turn of Events In this Psalm, we see Christ in deepest despair and resurrected glory as the subject of the widest proclamation. The circumstances in David’s life related to the historical context of this psalm pale in comparison to the historical circumstances in the life of Christ related to this psalm in both suffering and glory. Jesus’ Lament When we read Psalm 22, we need to hear it from the lips of Christ. We would do well to remember that the Psalter was the hymnbook of Jesus. We have no reason to think that He abstained from singing the Psalms, and we have every reason to think of the meaning of the Psalms on the lips of the Savior. To meditate on Psalm 22 coming from the mouth of Christ in the congregation is a good and fitting exercise of the mind. Hear Christ in the congregation singing and hear him on the cross saying My God, my God, why have you forsaken me. Hear him say vv7-8, 14-15, and 16-18. Then hear him is resurrected glory say v22. I have heard it said that when Jesus uttered the words of Psa. 22:1 from the cross it was like saying, “See Psalm 22.” While it is true that the entire Psalm finds application to Christ, when we hear the words of Psa. 22:1 on the lips of Jesus, we know that God has forsaken Him. This is the cry of dereliction, the cry of abandonment. I do not pretend to know what that means. Whatever it meant for David—a sense of absence for a time but no breach of covenant—the full reality of it belongs to Christ. I know that Christ did not cease to be God not for a second. I know that the Father did not cease to delight in and love the Son; the Son did not cease to delight in and love the Father. I know that the reality of this cry caused the sun to hide, the ground to shake, the rocks to split, the veil in the temple to be torn, Roman soldiers to confess, and the dead to come out of their graves. I know that in that moment God counted Himself, in the Person of His Son, to be sin for us and satisfied the demands of His holy justness. I know that God is infinitely pleased with Himself in this work. Unlike the Psalmist, there was no deliverance from wrath for Christ, simply the satisfying of wrath. He, because of His sinlessness, satisfied the wrath of the LORD, so the LORD now delights to save sinners. From eternity God delighted in Himself in the Trinity of His persons. That same delight Christ experienced and exemplified from the moment of His incarnation. Hear Jesus bearing our sin cry out, longing for the comfort of intimacy with God. This abandonment was temporary not eternal. It was both love and justice that demanded that Christ bear the load of our sin. It was love that laid that load on Christ in view of the delight the Godhead would know in the completion of this work of redemption. This, as Spurgeon put it, is the irresistible attraction of the cross (The Treasury of David, vol. 1, pp.332, 334). You can kick against this truth; your mind can rebel; you can hurl insults at God and accuse him throwing temper-tantrums. You must realize either Christ bore your sin and the wrath that belonged to you, or you will. The difference is you can never make satisfaction for your sin. You can never satisfy wrath. You cannot pay the debt. You will bear God’s wrath not for a moment, but forever. Someone must be abandoned to wrath, you or Christ. A Dramatic Turn of Events vv22-31 Not only are verses 1-21 true of Christ, but so are verses 22-31. The writer of Hebrews confirms it. Jesus did not suffer abandonment because of His own sin, but for ours. The result is that through Him God will bring many sons to glory. Because we have the same Father, Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers: I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise (Heb. 2:9-12, esp. v12). The head-wagging mockers went home satisfied and justified in their blasphemous thoughts of Christ. They slept well for a night or two. Then, God turned things around. He raised Jesus from the dead. The next thing you know Galilean fisher folk were in the Temple courts praising Jesus, calling on the sons of Jacob to stand in awe of Him. Yet, it didn’t stop there. In ever widening circles of praise crossing all social, ethnic, and national barriers, this dramatic turn of events is being proclaimed. The Church and Psalm 22 The church is to walk the Calvary road with Jesus in this world. In taking the gospel to the nations, we will have ample opportunity to lament, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” We will also have times of great rejoicing. If we are about what verses 22-31 say, we will be about what verses 1-21 say. The church in the West is not suffering much with Jesus. This is not the case globally. Of course, if the church suffers, individual Christians suffer. Somebody in the church has to bear the brunt end of the club, wear the bruises, and take the lumps. In a real sense when something happens to a church member, we are all impacted. The problem is when one person takes the sharp end of the knife, and the rest are not impacted. When Chechen rebels were battling to take the capital city of Grozny, they persecuted believers in the Baptist church. See if you can wrap your mind around this. In meetings with the EBF (European Baptist Federation), we listened to a member of the church, who had set up a refugee camp in Osetia, Russia, tell some of the story. Muslim rebels came into the church service and took the pastor. A few days later, his head was raised on a pole in the market. The church continued to meet. Sometime later they took the man who had assumed the pastor position. He denied the faith. They killed him anyhow. The church held no hope for his salvation. Hungarian Baptists, only a few in number, have a relief arm. Sandor the Hungarian, I call him, went straightway to take aid to the people, especially the Baptist of Grozny. He bribed Russian soldiers to sneak him into Chechnya. He made it to within 40 kilometers of Grozny, taking aid to and preaching the gospel to refugees. That is the spirit of this Psalm as it relates to the church walking the Calvary road in the world. There are many places not quite so dangerous where entire families can safely go and preach to people who do not have the gospel, who do not have a church, and who have no hope today. You don’t have to be a missionary to do this, but you do have to be a Christian. We need to erase the line between the secular and the sacred. I work with an unreached people group 180 days out of the year. They are called 7th graders. The Kingdom of God takes in the public school, the Christian university, the hospital, the courtroom, the marketplace, etc. Wherever God’s people are the Kingdom is and is coming. When you are endeavoring to be a Christian mom, businessman, administrator, teacher, professor, plumber, carpenter, pastor, accountant, you will feel the pressure of a culture, world, and demonic powers to focus on yourself, your position, and your money. When you view life through the lens of the Kingdom of God transforming the world by the gospel, it will cost you, and at times, you will feel as though even God has abandoned you. Don’t despair; God will turn things around. Conclusion: 1. When you feel forsaken by God, know that it is not ultimate. God will turn things around not because you deserve it or because you are innocent but because Christ was ultimately forsaken in your place. That and that alone makes reversal sure. He will turn things around, even if He has to raise the dead to do it. 2. Make all of your laments gospel oriented. Train yourself to view all of life through the lens of the gospel, even trouble. We have too much suffering that is held in isolation from our faith. We are stressed about this and anxious about that. Our concern for ourselves, our family, church, career, marriage, etc., should be viewed through God’s redemptive purpose in Christ. If my lamenting doesn’t fit that category, it may not be something I need to lament. 3. Make your gospel oriented lament part of the corporate life of the church. We suffer too much alone, with good reason at times. The odd ball, the strange one, the suspect is the one who never laments. Though Psalm 22 is an individual lament it is not a private lament. It is in the hymnbook. Lament is a corporate sport. We are too much like the priest, scribes, and elders of Israel gathered around the cross saying, He trusted the LORD. Let Him deliver him. “Let’s watch that brother and see if he makes it.” I am glad God doesn’t do that. 4. Know and Expect that ultimately God will dramatically turn things around. You can be courageous in ever widening circles of Gospel proclamation knowing that God raises the dead. If He can raise the dead, is there any circumstance that He cannot turn around? I love to hear stories about one of our members being harangued and made to leave an Amazon jungle village. You are in good company when that happens to you. Yet, you must realize that moment of persecution was the inroad for the gospel to that people at that time. It is a powerful presentation of the gospel that is necessary if we are to walk with Christ in this world. There is yet another presentation of the gospel that confronts us this morning. As we come to the Lord’s Table, we come with the knowledge that because He was forsaken, we cannot be. We come celebrating this moment because God is the God of unexpected, dramatic reversals. The fact that we are here taking this bread and this cup is due to God raising Christ from the dead and because of Him turning you around. 3720 North Highland Avenue Jackson, TN 38305 731-664-3295 Contact the Webmaster
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