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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
PSALM 22:1-5
(Readings: 1 Peter 2:4-25; Psalm 22)
So Far – Yet So Near!
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
You couldn’t miss it, could you?
Reading through Psalm 22 the specific phrases, allusions, and vivid descriptions point us straight to Jesus.
There can be no doubting how Messianic this psalm is.
I mean, could there be any Christian who doesn’t see the cross in this?
The prophecy of the crucifixion here is so exact in its detail.
No wonder so many commentators call this ‘The Psalm of the Cross.’
Then there is also the sufferer’s humility.
You won’t hear from this man any shout for revenge.
It’s like 1st Peter 2 verse 23 says, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in turn; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”
And what about all those others described as coming in?
What an ending with the gathering in of the Gentiles!
These things all show something far beyond the experience of David.
But what it does show us about David is what Peter said of him in Acts 2.
For there, in the verses 30 and 31, he said that as a prophet David saw what was ahead and so spoke of the Christ.
Charles Spurgeon in his inimitable way says of this psalm, “It is the photograph of our Lord’s saddest hours, the record of his dying words, the sadness of his last tears, the memorial of his expiring joys.
“David and his afflictions may be here in a very modified sense, but, as the star is concealed by the light of the sun, he who sees Jesus will neither see nor care to see David.
“Before us we have a description both of the darkness and of the glory of the cross, the sufferings of Christ and the glory which shall follow.
“Oh for the grace to draw near and see this great sight!”
Congregation, let’s pray for that.
Let’s come into this psalm looking to see the doing and dying and rising of the Lord Jesus.
It is not hard to see.
Already the first verse confronts us vividly with it.
In the words of a first aspect to our text, THIS IS THE WORST IT CAN GET.
Verse 1 begins, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
How deep this desolation is!
They are the natural words for Jesus to cry out upon the cross.
And you can find them from his mouth in Matthew 27 verse 46 and Mark 15 verse 34.
The word “why” already in itself has so much.
For here it’s not because of impatience and despair but because of alienation and yearning.
The person saying this – the sufferer – feels himself rejected by God.
As one person described it, this is not the “why” of a sinful questioning of one whose heart rebels against this humbling, but rather the cry of a lost child who cannot understand why his father has left him.
And he so much longs to see his father’s face again.
He has lost God’s loving presence.
So he’s undergoing divine wrath.
Isn’t hell itself where God’s love is not?
This man says this, though, very much believing God is there.
He calls out “My God” twice!
And it’s three times he says this when you count the same expression in verse 2.
So his faith is holding on tight.
He’s not going to let go.
He doesn’t think for a moment this is it, because right behind the dark cloud he knows there’s the sunshine of God’s love.
I mean, he refers to being saved.
And he knows how far the Lord is from his groaning.
There are echoes here of Job and his attitude.
Yet this is still something worse.
No one else has ever been deserted quite like this.
We see the situation that this fits, though, with the imagery in verse 2 of “day” and “night”.
Because it was literally day and night that Jesus went through on the cross.
Matthew 27 verse 45 said, just before Jesus uttered the words of verse 1, “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.”
It’s right through all this that his cries remain unanswered.
He doesn’t get a moment’s peace.
The ESV is spot on here with translating it, “but I find no rest.”
That shows us the parallel with the first part of verse 2.
You think about it.
Wasn’t it already in the Garden of Olives that Jesus’ sweat was like drops of blood because of the anguish of all this?
So when his passion reaches its climax days and nights had passed.
The image of the child pleading for his parent continues here.
And not the nagging speech of a naughty child either!
For here is a child who is quite lost.
In the words of Derek Kidner, “It is not a lapse of faith, nor a broken relationship, but a cry of disorientation as God’s familiar, protective presence is withdrawn.”
This is a pleading from the heart.
We can compare what’s pictured here in the verses 1 and 2 as a type of grief.
There is an awesome sadness, a loss which reaches to the very depths of his soul.
But it’s no grief of the world, though.
This is not a sorrow without hope.
In fact, after this world would have given up any thought of rescue ages ago this man is still looking up.
Right when it couldn’t get any deeper he actually reaches for the highest rock of all!
But now you might be wondering.
‘What do you mean?’
‘How could it happen?’
Well, verse 3 shows this sufferer’s changed perspective on things.
For now he doesn’t plead for mercy to God.
He acknowledges who he is!
“Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praise of Israel…”
And so we have come to a second aspect in our text.
THIS IS WHERE HE LOOKS UP.
There is no desperate cry here.
The alienation is put aside.
Now, you would think he would appeal to the compassion of God.
Isn’t that what we see elsewhere in the psalms and throughout Scripture?
Like, for example, Psalm 103.
In verses 13 and 14 there, we read, “As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust.”
But it’s the highest ground of all that this man reaches for here – the holiness of God.
This is his next prayerful appeal.
Can he do that, though?
Doesn’t the theme of God as “holy” really brings out the biggest difference there could be between him and God.
Does it?
Look again.
For in the same line as “holy” appears so too does the name “Israel”.
He who is the “holy” God is also the God who made a covenant with his chosen.
And it would be impossible for an Israelite to think of God’s holiness without also thinking about that covenant relationship.
What was it that the Lord said to his people repeatedly in the books of Moses?
Leviticus 19 verse 1 is but one example.
There it says, “The LORD said to Moses, ‘Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.’’”
And later on the prophets keep coming back to it.
Isaiah 41 verse 14 has these words from the Lord, ““Do not be afraid, O worm Jacob, O little Israel, for I myself will help you,” declares the LORD, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.”
Notice how the Lord is the praise of Israel in verse 3.
For this is all about God.
It’s his great attributes and deeds being praised here.
And who is the One being enthroned here?
‘Ah, the Lord,’ we say, ‘the God of the covenant.’
And who is this YAHWEH?
Who is the praise of Israel?
Revelation 5 verse 12 sings it out.
There the heavenly choirs join with the Church in declaring, “Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise!”
Congregation, it is no physical temple being talked about in verse 3.
God is enthroned in the hearts of his people and upon their lips.
The Lord being “the praise of Israel” means that what we sing must be a platform for God and not for men.
Something that’s more than up-to-date for the church of today!
So the argument here is that since God is holy how could he disregard his own holy one in his hour of anguish?
In those immortal words of Jesus in Luke 22 verse 42, in the Garden of Gethsemane, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me.”
The sufferer in our text knows his God so well he appeals to the very core of his nature.
We have seen that in the second aspect, THIS IS WHERE HE LOOKS UP.
But he’s not finished.
There are still the verses 4 and 5.
So, in the third place, let’s see, THIS IS WHERE THE PAST COMES IN.
Now let’s go back here to a man who has been regarded as the greatest prophet there was before Jesus Christ.
At the time of Jesus that’s certainly how he was known.
That man is Moses.
He was a man who showed Christ-like qualities in his mediating for the people after the incident of the golden calf.
That was the terrible idolatry which occurred when the people weren’t willing to wait for the return of Moses from the Mount of Sinai.
When Moses came back down he found the people worshipping a golden calf.
And Aaron had been a party to it all!
Well, the Lord was furious!
He declared to Moses his intention to destroy the Israelite nation and make out of Moses a great nation.
And what does Moses do?
Listen to his words in Exodus 32, verses 11 till 14, ‘But Moses sought the favour of the LORD his God.
“O LORD,” he said, “why should your anger burn against your people, whom you brought out of Egypt with great power and a mighty hand?
“Why should the Egyptians say, ‘It was with evil intent that he brought them out, to kill them in the mountains and to wipe them off the face of the earth’?
“Turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.
“Remember your servants Abraham, Isaac and Israel, to whom you swore by yourself: ‘I will make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and I will give your descendants all this land I promised them, and it will be their inheritance forever.’”
“Then the LORD relented and did not bring on his people the disaster he had threatened.”
It was a fair call.
And it’s exactly the one made in verses 4 and 5.
For notice how many times the word “trust” appears.
It’s three times.
And then notice the way this word is used.
You see, it is tied in with being saved.
In verse 4 the sufferer prays, “In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.”
So trust and deliverance are put together as cause and effect.
Trusting looks to being saved.
But in verse 5 it’s a different sense.
There trusting and being rescued, or being “not put to shame,” as we read, is in a reciprocal relation.
That means it’s together.
It’s this second sense which further confirms how Messianic this psalm is.
With Christ being man and God, his human side was thoroughly Israelite, and the God of Israel is also the God of salvation.
So he pleads upon the promises he himself has given to his people.
Congregation, while we know that this prayer did not bring our Lord Jesus deliverance in this life, we must yet see that we have to plead this way with God.
We can remind the Lord of the love he’s shown in the past to his people.
We may beg him to stay the same.
Our prayers must be a wrestling with God.
And that’s a skill we need to learn.
The fathers in the past showed us this.
They cried and they trusted.
And they kept on crying and trusting.
Indeed, isn’t this what Jesus modelled for us?
When he asked his Father to take away that cup of suffering, in Luke 22 verse 42, he also added, “yet not my will but yours be done.”
Believer, don’t be ashamed of your hope.
The Lord will give you what you need when you need it.
How will you know it?
Because you prayed for it!
You have been waiting on him for it.
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
O Holy One of Israel, you the God of the covenant…
We enthrone you now in our prayers.
We honour you for all you are and what you have done.
And we look to you doing that again.
Keep us believing that, and so keep us working for you in that, we pray.
In your Name we pray, Amen.
* As a matter of courtesy please advise Rev. Sjirk Bajema, if you plan to use this sermon in a worship service. Thank-you.
(c) Copyright 2020, Rev. Sjirk Bajema
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