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| Order Of Worship (Liturgy) |
PSALM 22:12-21
(Reading: John 19:16b-30; Psalm 22:1-21)
So Hurt – Yet So Healing!
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
It’s all coming a lot closer now for the suffering servant.
In fact, the enemy is already right around him.
And there’s a definite “pack” mentality about them.
You see, they are circling around.
Verse 12 uses the imagery of bulls.
And they’re strong bulls – the bulls of Bashan.
Bashan, now that’s an arrogant place.
Amos 4 verse 1 describes the people from there as being quite full of themselves.
Because they certainly had no room for anyone else.
They lived in a highly fertile area.
Their crops and cattle made them rich, as Deuteronomy 32 verse 14 testifies.
And didn’t they let you know it!
They are the strong obviously moving in on the weak.
This is like you see on many television news reports regarding someone simply walking their usual way home after work or a social event.
He’s got off at the railway station or a bus stop as he has so often done before.
There were some young people gathered together who see him.
They’ve been drinking alcohol or doing drugs – or both.
And seeing that person on his own, they gang up, and attack him and beat him up – even to the extent of perhaps killing him.
The mob mentality set in.
They had the power.
They had the opportunity.
And here was a victim.
The imagery David uses in verse 12 is of the bullies of that time.
Using a scene that is constantly repeated throughout human history, he vividly pictures the crowd when it becomes bestial.
No wonder he refers to bulls and lions and dogs and wild oxen.
And he gives much the same reasons why they do.
There’s that gang-mentality, greed, and perverted tastes.
They get a real thrill out of this!
There can be no question that there’s a different scene here than the two we’ve met before in this psalm.
Because earlier on in verses 1 and 2 it was the suffering servant being left alone by God.
And in the verses 6 till 8 he’s undergoing that intense psychological scorn.
Now, in the words of the first aspect to this text, THIS IS WHERE THE ATTACK IS PHYSICAL.
Congregation, verse 12 opened with the prey being trapped.
There’s no getting out of this one for the suffering servant.
In the words of Charles Spurgeon, “The mighty ones in the crowd are here marked by the tearful eye of their victim.
“The priests, elders, scribes, Pharisees, rulers, and captains bellowed round the cross like wild cattle, fed in the fat and solitary pastures of Bashan, full of strength and fury; they stamped and foamed around the innocent One, and longed to gore him to death with their cruelties.
And he goes on, “Conceive of the Lord Jesus as a helpless, unarmed, naked man, cast into the midst of a herd of infuriated wild bulls.
“They were brutal as bulls, many, and strong, and the Rejected One was all alone, and bound naked to the tree.
“His position throws great force into the earnest entreaty, from the previous verse, ‘Do not be far from me.’”
Verse 13 confirms this dreadful state.
For a “roaring lion” he open wide his mouths, which means he’s roaring, is about to take a chunk out of him as well.
Amos 3 verse 4 tells us that’s what lions do when they’ve caught their prey.
Then verse 14 tells us what they do.
The servant’s body being poured out like water shows all the liquid being sapped from his body.
The liquid which as water and blood is vital for survival.
In the same verse we read of his “bones are out of joint”.
This means they are being stretched out in a forcible and anguishing way.
And in the same verse still, there is the heart turning to wax.
This speaks of his burning pain, the inflammation of his wounds, and the pressure of blood on the head and the heart.
These three actions are a clear description of but one type of execution – that of crucifixion.
This can only be about being nailed to a cross.
And verse 15 draws it out clearer yet.
For when your strength is dried up like potsherd, you are describing a drying process within the kiln.
A drying process which leaves absolutely no moisture in that clay whatsoever!
Perhaps you have been in hospital awaiting surgery.
Did you remember when you couldn’t have a drink before you went in?
How much you longed for just a drop of water then!
That’s a suffering all of its own.
And this suffering servant experiences it in its worst extremity!
No wonder he says next, “my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth”.
Cruel as all this is, though, it is yet happening with the power God himself has given the enemy.
When he says, “you lay me down in the dust of death” it is God he’s referring to.
And look where he’s been laid.
In the dust of the earth!
How much isn’t God’s Son humbled on our behalf?
Because there can be no doubt nothing in David’s life remotely fits this description.
Here he’s having a vision about something far beyond what he has ever gone through – or ever will.
It is so very prophetic.
And it is here we come to the second aspect in this text.
THIS IS HOW HE IS BROUGHT TO DEATH.
Because if we thought that the description so far was quite graphic it becomes even more detailed now.
In fact, the next three verses – the verses 16 till 18 - put the case beyond doubt altogether!
Let’s see how.
Verse 16 draws again the imagery of the prey being trapped.
This time it’s the dogs surrounding him.
There is no worse animal for this scene.
When they are in a pack they are evil.
Any sheep in their way is a dead one.
And that death will be the most torturous and extracting death.
The words picturing hands and feet being pierced are vivid about this.
Because it’s the hands and the feet which are possible defences – to ward off attack and to run away from attack.
But here they are being pinned back.
At least that’s what it seems to be saying.
But there’s been some debate about the Hebrew word used here.
Some say that it should be “bound” or “hacked off”.
So it would read, “they have tied up my hands”, or, “they have chopped off my hands.
Yet that would be translating it on the basis of alterations made to the Masoretic text after the time of Christ.
The Septuagint translation, though, two hundred years before Christ, understood it simply as piercing.
So even though death in this way was unknown in David’s time, it is yet clear that it’s exactly this kind of death being spoken of.
That’s pretty prophetic!
You see, the gospels are clear this is what happened.
John 20 verse 25 is but one example, when Jesus invited Thomas to put his fingers in the nail holes in his hands.
It’s also confirmed in the passage in the Old Testament which is even more vivid about what the suffering servant will go through.
Isaiah 53 verse 5 says, “he was pierced for our transgressions.”
And in Zechariah 12 there’s another prophecy about this.
Verse 10 there says, “And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication.
“They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and mourn for him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for him as one grieves for a firstborn son.”
It’s all very clear.
This is the Messiah here.
Verse 17 describes him as being able to count all his bones.
Naturally you think of extreme malnutrition.
And that doesn’t seem to tie in with Jesus in his death, because there would have a good amount of flesh and muscle tissue on him.
Think about Christ on the cross, though.
Look at his writhing in agony.
This is terrible pain.
And with his body being stretched like that he can see all his bones.
The people staring and gloating recalls the description in verses 6 till 8.
But here it specifically related to his physical suffering.
This is that morbidness in seeing someone die.
Now, you would think that seeing someone die would have tugged at their heart-strings.
There should have been a sense of compassion.
Not here, however.
This is the moment to bring out the worst in human nature.
And then we come to verse 18.
These are the words directly quoted in John 19 verse 24.
Because the Roman soldiers, as the executioners, claimed any possessions.
In this case, though, because this was the only thing of value and its value was in being kept whole, they gambled for it using a type of ancient dice.
Congregation, it couldn’t get any more Messianic than this!
And the description couldn’t be more definite about the death of this man than this.
Because dividing up the possessions of the executed happens after the executioner’s work is done.
The spoils of war come after the battle is won.
And the Saviour’s work here is done.
In the words of the third aspect to this text, THIS IS WHY GOD HEARS HIS CRY.
For this is where the text changes around.
Verse 19 begins the way verses 3 and 9 began.
While they said, “Yet”, and this said “But”, it has the same meaning – it’s the same Hebrew word.
It’s a word which is a conjunction.
It means, “in spite of that” or “however”.
And, now, in the third and last time this word appears in Psalm 22, it’s all come to a climax.
The severe afflictions in the verses 12 till 18 bring out now a series of urgent cries.
It’s clear who he’s crying to.
It’s the God of the covenant – YAHWEH – the Lord of the covenant.
This is about the special relationship God has with his people.
And there’s another word he uses for the Lord here.
“O you my help,” he calls him.
In the depth of his utter weakness he confesses God as the idea of strength.
He declares that the Lord is everything which he is not!
That’s faith!
That’s believing that when I am weak he is strong!
Here John Calvin notes, “As his miseries had reached the utmost height, and as he saw not even a single ray of hope to encourage him to expect deliverance, it is a wonderful instance of the power of faith, that he not only endured his afflictions patiently, but that from the abyss of despair he arose to call upon God.”
He does this because his life is precious.
To say “my soul” emphasises the uniqueness of this life.
It’s a “one off”, an unrepeatable, only, one.
And it’s laid out in this prayer to the Lord to be saved from the sword and the dogs and the lions and the wild oxen.
What a contrast.
The life of this man compared with these evil men and animals.
Will he be yet another one killed by the hatred and brutality of mankind?
Is what he came to do going to be wasted on the altar of greed and perversity?
No way!
This One is the way, the truth, and the life - to use the words of John 14 verse 6.
And verse 21 ends exactly on this note, doesn’t it?
True, it gives out that plea at its beginning.
There for the fifth time he cries out for rescue!
But he ends thanking the Lord.
The ESV here does justice to the last word of verse 21 in the original.
It is something other translations miss.
This is why Derek Kidner shows that since the Hebrew word has a verb in the perfect tense, the end of verse 21 actually becomes a cry that greets a last-minute deliverance.
So it would go, “Rescue me from the mouth of the lions, and from the horns of the wild oxen.
“You have answered me!”
This helps make this the vital hinge of the psalm.
Here it turns from the power of darkness to the spread of joy.
This is the spring board which puts us into the theme of what follows.
And it’s what ties in with the fulfilment of these words in the New Testament.
Hebrews 5 verse 7 has the same sense.
For there we read, “During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.”
Congregation, could all this be reading too much into a song written by David some one thousand years before Jesus came?
Are we being too imaginative in how we apply this to Christ?
How could we?
The words are clear enough.
In fact, if Jesus is the Word didn’t he write these words through David?
For who else could he be speaking of than himself?
Who else was sinless?
Because there’s no note of confession in this psalm.
The intense suffering doesn’t bring out a sin that is the cause of it.
And throughout this whole time who else would be completely sinless in his relation to God?
Friend, it’s plain to see.
It’s the blind who can’t see.
Amen.
PRAYER:
Let’s pray…
Dearest Lord Jesus,
How much didn’t you go through for me!
Because it was for your people you suffered in the worst possible ways.
You were cut off from your Father’s loving presence, you were scornfully rejected by your own, and you were set upon in the most cruel way.
Because it was only you, dear Saviour, who could make it through.
Only your sacrifice could open the way for us to be here this day.
And so we humbly thank you.
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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