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Introduction
While this psalm was written by David, Christians have always identified this psalm with the crucifixion of Christ.
Charles Spurgeon called Psalm 22 “The Psalm of the Cross” and Jesus, himself quoted this psalm during his crucifixion.
[pray]
I. His Suffering and Crucifixion
A. Abandoned by God
We recognize verse 1 as the words that Jesus quoted on the cross...
Psalm 22:1a (CSB)
1a My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
This feeling of abandonment is one that each one of us have shared from time to time.
Some of us feel abandoned by someone that we loved and trusted.
Others perhaps feel abandoned by a friend or a group of friends that turned their back on us.
Some have been abandoned by those who, by all rights, should never have abandoned us… parents, children, church family, spiritual mentors.
These feelings of abandonment hurt deeply.
Our deepest feelings of abandonment are rooted in our most profound feelings of love and connection.
The problem with feelings is that sometimes they lie to us and keep us from seeing the truth of things.
People often falsely blame God for their troubles and feel abandoned by God.
But does God really give up on his own people?
We think that God is so far removed from our day to day experience that we are all alone in our struggle.
There are times that we have truly experienced abandonment in life from those that we love.
We live in a fallen world where sometimes we are hurt by the actions of others.
However, other times our feelings of abandonment are not based in reality, but in our perception.
This can especially be true when we are talking about feeling abandoned by God.
Additionally, there are times that God puts us in a situation that we must learn how to get through on faith and perseverance rather than being rescued by the sovereign hand of God Almighty.
These are seasons of growth and spiritual development.
God uses these times in our lives to prepare us for his work and they are absolutely necessary.
We might beg for God to release us from these experiences, but to do so would stall our spiritual development and delay our progress.
And then there are times that we are caught so deeply with our own suffering that, from our perspective, it appears that God has completely forsaken us.
But, I ask you this question...
Did God really forsake his son on the cross?
Does God forsake us when we sin or are going through times of suffering?
This can be tricky when we are observing our condition from a place of suffering because our feelings are incapable of helping us find the truth.
We often feel so completely alone that we think we have been abandoned.
Our personal experience tells our brain that we have been abandoned.
However, our theology teaches us something very different about abandonment.
There is another word here in this passage.
Watch for it… “trust”.
When the ancestors trusted in God, what did he do for them?
[He rescued them.]
What did he do when they cried out to God? [He set them free.]
Did they experience shame when they put their trust in the Lord?
[No.]
When Israel cried out for a redeemer, what did God do time and again?
[He sent a redeemer to rescue them, time and time again.]
When we find ourselves in a time of suffering, we repeat the same mistake that Israel made.
We get down on ourselves and beat ourselves up by getting down in the mud like a worm and feeling sorry for ourselves.
The psalmist wrote...
We feel like we’re all on our own, but are we really alone?
B. Never alone, Never forsaken...
We can see a beautiful promise from God to his people throughout scripture...
Matthew 28:20b (CSB)
20b And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Hebrews 13:5c (CSB)
5c I will never leave you or abandon you.
Principle: If you love God and have the blessing of a relational connection with him, God will never abandon you.
If that is the case, why did Jesus feel abandoned by God?
Part of this is a mystery to us.
This is a way of saying that we don’t know or understand why God had to do things in this way.
I personally believe, that—while God is all powerful and can do things any way that he chooses—God has chosen to do things in a specific way due to something that is beyond our understanding.
Perhaps he has agreed to follow certain rules of engagement, or there is something in the design of this plan of salvation that requires him to do things in a certain way.
We cannot say why, because the why is not yet revealed to us.
For whatever reason that only God understands, God had to turn his back on Jesus as he took our sins upon himself so that we might be saved.
The best way that I can think of this is that God cannot coexist with sin.
But he found a way that his son, Jesus, could take our sin and pay the price so that we might find salvation and be restored to a relationship of peace with God.
The prophet Isaiah wrote about the suffering of the Messiah and the reason for that suffering…
Paul wrote to the church a Galatia...
The abandonment that Jesus felt was supposed to be our own abandonment by God.
He took that sin that was by all rights in our own account and he took those sins upon himself by some divine means, so that he might become a sacrificial offering on our behalf.
C. Despised By Mankind
While, Jesus the divine being, the Son of God, felt abandoned by God, Jesus the Son of Man, felt the rejection of humanity in this moment as well.
It was in the nature of the God/Man to turn back to God, even when he felt abandoned by that same God.
Therefore, he begged God to return to him and end the abandonment.
This is an appropriate response when we experience our own suffering.
Turn to God and beg him for his peace and his grace to comfort you when you feel alone.
The psalm then goes into some examples of the experience of suffering.
While we may not understand from our own daily experience what the bulls of Bashan might be like or the mauling of a pride of lions.
These are examples of the strength and severity of the enemies that are in hot pursuit.
I think many of us can relate to verse 14...
There have been days that I could absolutely relate to these verses.
When we go through trials that sap our energy, they can absolutely consume our thought life so that we don’t sleep well and our thinking is clouded.
There is this overwhelming fatigue that can overtake us at times.
This, I think is related to the depression that plays out in our physical wellbeing.
There is also a visceral response to the fear and anxiety that can overwhelm us at times.
Let’s keep going and look at verse 18...
Verse 18 makes a reference that we connect to the experience that Jesus had on the cross.
We can see this played out in the various gospel accounts: Mt 27:35; Lk 23:34; Jn 19:24.
The Roman guards plundered Jesus’ belongings and mocked him by gambling for his clothing while he hung on the cross.
And verses 19-21 return to a prayer for deliverance from this treacherous situation.
D. How Should We Respond?
There are two responses that I can see to this text:
1.
How do we respond to our own suffering?
Unfortunately we do suffer at times.
As I’ve already mentioned there are times that trouble comes into our lives.
We sometimes experience:
family and relational troubles
financial and career difficulties
health and mental wellbeing challenges
the sinful behavior of others who strike out against us
Any of these experiences can cause us to feel abandoned or depressed and anxious.
There are several things that we can do when we experience these kinds of troubles:
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