Psalm 22 - The Song of Jesus on the Cross

Podcast Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by Apple Podcasts)

Hello. Hope that your April is getting off to a great start or whenever you're listening to this particular podcast. We are in Psalm 22 today, and we have got just an absolute treat of a psalm.

This is truthfully one of my favorite psalms. If for no other reason than this was what Jesus cried out in his moment of greatest suffering and sorrow and need. And so this is something that was dear to God made flesh.

And so to me, it just screams out, hey, this is really important. Of course, we know that all of scripture is important. But the fact that Jesus on the cross, when he could have chosen from anything that was there, he chose Psalm 22.

And so I think that we can gain some great insights for our spiritual life today as a result of saying this.

The inscription for this psalm says this, for the choir director, according to the Deer of the Dawn, which would appear to be like a tune name, so especially back maybe 150 years ago, it was way more common for there to be a variety of lyrics and

poems that went with one particular tune. So I think I've heard it before, you can do a number of songs to the tune of Amazing Grace, or you can do a number of songs to the tune of... Oh, what's the one song's name?

House of the Rising Sun, that because of what's called Common Meter, which is normally eight syllables, six syllables, eight syllables and six syllables, that you can do a number of songs like that. It's how you could put things together.

So here it looks like that's one of the things that you could do. David says, Hey, I think this tune would be great for this particular song. And it's a Psalm of David.

Starts off like this in verse number one. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? Why are you so far from my deliverance and from my words of groaning?

My God, I cry by day, but you do not answer. By night, yet I have no rest. But you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.

Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted and you rescued them. They cried to you and were set free.

They trusted in you and were not disgraced. Here in these first five verses, we see David, he's mentioning again a theme that we have seen very often, as we've been reading through the Psalms, this thing of God, I really, really need you.

I need you to show up. I'm crying and I'm getting no relief. And here he's calling on God.

He realizes who he is. He says, you are holy. You are set apart.

You are different. You are enthroned on the praises of Israel. He says, God, you have earned everything that people have said about you.

Your reputation has been proven over and over and over again. He says, our fathers, our ancestors, they cried out to you. They know what it's like.

But then in verse six, he says this, But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by people. Everyone who sees me mocks me. They sneer and shake their heads.

He relies on the Lord. Let him save him. Let the Lord rescue him since he takes pleasure in him.

There in verses six through eight, especially as you think about the cross and the crucifixion, how much those words jump off the page, that this was what Jesus endured, that he was mocked, he was naked, his clothes were gambled for.

The chief priests and elders and scribes, they laughed at him. They said, let's see if God saves him. Let's see even if Elijah saves him as they misunderstood when he said the Greek words, Eloi, Eloi, Lama Sabachthani.

They are from the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures of Psalm 22 and verse 1. My God, my God, Eloi, Eloi. And they thought he was saying Eli, Eli, as in Elijah.

And I think here too, not only of our Savior that he experienced this, but here it's David writing it. He's saying, this is the experience that I have in my life, that people are judging me. People are looking down on me.

And maybe that's where you are today. None of us are going through what Jesus went through, complete condemnation and rejection by man and the Father placing all the sins of the world on our shoulders. None of us are going through that.

But here, that's not what David was experiencing either. He had people that were on his side. He had family.

He had these other things. But he felt these sorrows. And you might feel these things as well.

And God, through putting this in Scripture, tells you it's okay to feel that way, that you can be going through your life and feel like you're just getting hit from every single angle. And you can cry out to God and go, God, I need you.

I feel abandoned. I feel like everyone's against me. And I feel like, you know, perhaps for you, you might have some family members that are unsaved.

You might have some coworkers that are unsaved. You might have some friends or some neighbors. And you might have experienced something like this, where people kind of jeer at your faith in Christ, especially when you're going through tough times.

So what then does David go on to say in verses 9 and 10? He says, It was you who brought me out of the womb, making me secure at my mother's breast. I was given over to you at birth.

You have been my God from my mother's womb. He says, God, I've been yours for all of my life. And this was true of Christ, very true.

Verse number 11, don't be far from me because distress is near and there's no one to help. Here, I love that phrase. Don't be far from me.

And there's a song, Be Near. I don't recall who the initial artist would have been for it. I believe Shane and Shane is the one that I heard it from.

I will link that in these comments. Be near, oh God, be near. And I feel like so many times we need that.

And God here inspires us to pray that to him. God, don't be far from me. Be near.

Verse number 12. Many bulls surround me. Strong ones of Bashan encircle me.

They open their mouths against me. Lions mauling and roaring. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed.

My heart is like wax melting within me. 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. For dogs have surrounded me. A gang of evildoers have closed in on me.

They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. People look and stare at me.

They divided my garments among themselves. And they cast lots from my clothing. Here in these verses, he's talking about the wicked, the ones that are coming at him.

And he starts off in verse number 12 with something that I want to mention because many of the other words we know, but there's some weird things in verse 12. Many bulls surround me. Strong ones of Bashan encircle me.

Bashan was the kind of centerpiece of Baal worship in the Old Testament times. It was called, if I remember correctly what I was reading earlier, normally the Seat of the Serpent.

There were times where there were false idols that were put up there in Bashan. It would be at Mount Hermon. It was in the north in Dan, in the area of the tribe of Dan.

There's some things that would indicate this perhaps might even have been one of the locations that Jesus even went to.

It was near Caesarea Philippi, this region, where Jesus told the disciples about the gates of hell not prevailing against the church, and where Jesus made that declaration would have been where a place was called, the gates of hell.

It was a place of idol worship. And here he says, those that are worshiping other gods have come against me. He says, many bowls surround me.

You can think even of the idol that was created of the golden calf, and that wasn't kind of a one-off thing. This was something that was very common in those days. That was one of the ways in which these false gods were presented was as a bull.

So here he's saying, if you will, the demonic forces of evil and those that follow the false gods, they have come against me. And I think of Jesus that all of hell was rallied against him.

And you see his constant interactions with the demonic while he was on earth and how he defeated them and disarmed them. But on the cross, they thought they had won until he died.

And then what's called the heroine of hell, that he came, he took the keys, he led the prisoners out, reunited them with the father. Way too much to go into today.

I believe there's a Psalm at one point that we'll go over specifically talking about that. You can look at Colossians 2, Ephesians 4. I think it's Psalm 68 actually, so we won't get it on this round through.

And 1 Peter 3, among other places that all talk about Jesus' work in kind of robbing and destroying Hell's dominion. But for the moment, they thought they were winning against Christ. They opened their mouths against me, lions mauling and roaring.

You can think of 1 Peter 5, Satan is talked about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.

There, the description that's given is so similar to what Christ went through on the cross that he's poured out like water when his side was pierced by the spear. That blood and water came out signifying he had already died.

All my bones are disjointed that Christ went through incredible suffering on the cross. 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. A very apt description of what the body would go through even in crucifixion. Verse number 16, that they pierced his hands and his feet.

There are prophecy hundreds of years before Jesus, hundreds of years before the Romans even invented crucifixion. And yet that prophecy was given. Verse number 18, they divided my garments among themselves and they cast lots.

They gambled for my clothing there again, prophesying what Jesus would go through. Verse 19, but you, Yahweh, don't be far away. My strength come quickly to help me rescue my life from the sword, from violence.

My only life from the power of these dogs. Save me from the lion's mouth, from the horns of wild oxen.

So there's kind of bringing all the pictures in together of all of these animal type things that are signifying demonic forces and those that worship them attacking Christ.

But then in verse, in the end of verse 21, beginning of verse 22, he says, You answered me. You rescued me. I will proclaim your name to my brothers and sisters.

I will praise you in the assembly. You who fear Yahweh, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob, honor him.

All you descendants of Israel, revere him. For he has not despised or abhorred the torment of the oppressed. He did not hide his face from him, but listened when he cried to him for help.

Here, it's the joy of the resurrection that's occurring. It is Jesus is alive, he is not dead, he was not abandoned, he was not forsaken. Instead, though, he felt that way.

In reality, God was working all things out so that Christ would reign victorious forever and ever.

And for you today, like with David, here David's able to say, you answered me, God, you heard me, you didn't forsake me, you didn't run from me when I was oppressed. Instead, you were there, you listened to me.

And I'd encourage you, keep on calling out. If God can defeat death, if God can defeat the grave, if he can defeat your sin nature, then there's nothing that he can't do in your life. Keep on calling out to him.

See what he will do. He might not change your circumstances, he might change you. He might not give you exactly what you're asking for.

He might give you something better. There's no telling how God might answer. But here the response of David, the response of Jesus, is praise God because of what he has done.

Verse number 25. I will give praise in the great assembly because of you. I will fulfill my vows before those who fear you.

The humble will eat and be satisfied. Those who seek Yahweh will praise him. May your hearts live forever.

Because of what Jesus has done, our hearts can live forever. And not just our hearts, but our whole being, our whole person will live forever because of what God has done. Verse number 27.

All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Yahweh. All the families of the nations will bow down before you, for kingship belongs to Yahweh. He rules the nations.

All who prosper on earth will eat and bow down. All those who go down to the dust, everyone who dies, will kneel before him. Even the one who cannot preserve his life will still bow before God.

Because their descendants will serve him. The next generation will be told about the Lord. They will come and declare his righteousness to a people yet to be born.

They will declare what he has done.

Today, you too can know and worship and be helped by and glorify this king that though you may not be able to preserve your own life, though you can't guarantee the quality of your day to day, of your day to day, know that God can and that God can do

incredible things and that God can cause miracles to come. We sing a song at our church that talks about the fact that God can turn anything around. And it uses some pictures from the Bible. It says, You turn mourning to dancing.

You give beauty for ashes. You turn shame into glory. They're talking from the scroll of Isaiah.

It says, You're the only one who can. He says, You turn graves into gardens.

Talking about Jesus, where he was buried was kind of a garden area and what was the location of where his grave was, was then a garden that you have Mary that said, that thought that the resurrected Jesus was the gardener who tended to the garden.

And so he turns graves into gardens. He turns bones into armies, talking from the scroll of Ezekiel and how God made this army out of this living, breathing army out of the Valley of Dry Bones. He says, you turn seas into highways.

They're talking about Moses and the Children of Israel when they were crossing the Red Sea and that they crossed through on dry ground, even though there had been a sea that was there for them.

And so you're the only one who can hear, even if hell itself endeavors to shake you, to harm you, to harm your family, to seek to drive a wedge between you and God.

Know that all of the forces of this world, every person, every sin, every demon is powerless against our God. And though we may go through suffering, just as Jesus went through suffering, it is never final.

Instead, we know that there is victory, that we will be able to praise God, that he will reign forever, and that he, if you have accepted him as Savior, he has invited you as well to rule and reign with him forever, that we will be in that great

assembly praising God together, living the life that he intended for us to live from the very beginning. And I'm looking forward to that day.

Looking forward to seeing our Savior, the one who was pierced, the one who was put through such incredible agony for us. Looking forward to the day where I get to meet him face to face.

Hope that today would be an encouragement to you, whether you are on the praising side and so thankful for what God has done, or if you are in the side that David and Jesus were on of sadness and of feeling forsaken and feeling all of the attacks

from people, I know that God is there for you. So tomorrow, Psalm 23, one of the most well-known portions in all of Scripture, and really looking forward to spending some time in it with you all tomorrow. Thanks for tuning in. Have a wonderful day.