“1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent. 3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. 4 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. 5 They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.” (Psalm 22:1-5 NIV).
This Psalm is prophetic and describes the suffering of the Messiah. It is one of the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament. We stated that in this Psalm of lament David expresses his complete trust and confidence in the Lord. It is easy to trust God when things are going well. It is only the trials of life that reveal the true nature of one’s faith. Can we trust Him in the difficult and dark circumstances? That is what this Psalm is about. The shadows of lament in verses 1-2 quickly fade in the light of the faith of verses 3-5.
There are times when we cry to God and He appears to be silent. Been there, done it. Will be there again before my life is over I’m sure. Those are disquieting moments. Lewis put it this way, “Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be – or so it feels – welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent in time of trouble?” {Lewis, C.S., A Grief Observed, (Bantam Books, New York, 1961, pp. 4-5) emphasis mine}.
Both David and our Lord Himself knew the agony of the Divine silence. Think of it. Jesus Himself, in His hour of greatest need cried out “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46 NIV). Certainly it must have seemed both to Him in His humanity and the onlookers surrounding Him that God had indeed deserted Him. According to this Psalm and other passages as well as historical accounts of scourging, we know that as He hung there on the cross his flesh was so torn that bones were visible (v. 17), glistening white against the torn red flesh. Further more, there He was, suspended upon a tree–certainly a sign of God’s disapproval! Deuteronomy 21:22-23 says, “22 If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, 23 you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance.” Case closed. Jesus was condemned as being under God’s curse by the very nature of His execution. (That is why the Jews insisted on this form of execution instead of following their own Law and stoning Him for the blasphemy they claimed to condemn Him for.) All appearances were here was a deluded man who was now deserted and condemned. (We know better.)
But think of it. This was in fact the end was it not? The One they had hoped for was about to die under a Mosaic Law that assured the Jews of God’s displeasure with this Man. Talk about a hopeless situation. How could He die and yet know that His trust in the Father would not be in vain (v. 5)? Because the cross led to the grave and the grave to the resurrection and the resurrection led to the Ascension and the Ascension one day, perhaps soon, will result in a glorious return!
Our problem is that most of us have so invested our lives in the things of this world that we have lost sight of the next. Instead of “setting our minds on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:2 NIV) we have so focused on the temporary and passing things of this world and it’s no wonder that we whine like spoiled children when we don’t get our own way! (Please do not take offense at this last statement, I am guilty as well!) Until we come to realize that God’s purpose for us is beyond this life, it will be impossible for us to comprehend the sure deliverance that the Psalmist refers to in our passage. The relative ease and comfort of Western pleasures has caused 97% (according to a Barna poll) of professed believers to settle for a secular rather than a sacred mind-set. No wonder we struggle!
Think of it this way. The average American gladly spends 21 hours a week in front of a television and grudgingly gives 30 minutes a week to a sermon (One lady once complained to me that my sermons were too long. That studies have shown that 20 minutes of a message was all most adults could focus on at a time). No wonder our view is toward this life and not the things of Christ!
Enough. Let me assure you that God does hear and answer prayers. He hears and answers your prayers. Even in those times when you feel like crying, ““1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, and am not silent.” Be assured that you can say (and will eventually come to realize), “3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the praise of Israel. 4 In you our fathers put their trust; they trusted and you delivered them. 5 They cried to you and were saved; in you they trusted and were not disappointed.”
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