"Forsaken" Sermon: Psalm 22

“Forsaken”

[Psalm 22]

April 6, 2012 Second Reformed Church

            Psalm 22 is one of David’s Psalms.  It is, perhaps above all others, the Psalm of the Cross.  We know from the Gospels that Jesus quoted parts of this psalm and fulfilled its prophecies on that ghastly Friday; Jesus may have quoted the entire psalm as He hung on the cross.

            It’s not certain what event inspired David to write this psalm, but we ought to understand that this is not merely prophecy about the Savior, Jesus.  It is also something that occurred to David.  We are hearing David’s anguish as well as the prophetic word which was fulfilled in Jesus.

            “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?  Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?  O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.”

            David found himself in a desperate situation.  Something or someone was upon him and he was crying out – groaning – to God day and night for deliverance, but no word came from God – no deliverance came from God.  All there was was a terrifying silence that left David thinking that God had deserted him – as God once deserted Saul.  The sweet communion that David had known with His Lord was violently disrupted, and he didn’t know why.

            Jesus had been betrayed the night before.  Judas had sold Him to the Jews and the Romans.  The Jews had taken Him and tried Him overnight – illegally, abusively – and found Him guilty of heresy.  But that would not have held up in a Roman court – and they were subjects of Rome – Rome had to hand down the sentence of death.  And so Jesus was charged with trying to overthrow the Roman government.  And He was mocked by Herod, quizzed and tortured under Pontius Pilate, and sentenced to death by crucifixion – perhaps the most horrible way to die ever invented.

            Jesus carried His cross and marched up to the hill where He would be crucified with others, and the Romans pounded spikes through His wrists and ankles, and thrust the cross up into the air and into a hole, and there He hung.

            “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:46, ESV).

            Perhaps we can imagine the desperate cry of David and how he felt deserted by God – but how can we understand these words on the lips of Jesus?  Jesus is God.  How could God be separated – forsaken – deserted – by God?  How could the Loving Father forsake His Beloved Son?

            We can only turn to the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity and grasp at the answer:  Jesus is 100% human and 100% God in One Person.  God is One God, yet God is Three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Although Jesus is both God and human, He has one nature – it is not like us who have God living within us, but Jesus is God and human at the same time.  We are human and God lives in us – our nature and God’s Nature are different.

            So we, through sin or under disciple, may despair of God’s Presence with us and in us, but Jesus Who is God and Human at the same time in the same Person with one nature?  We cannot say that “part” of Jesus deserted Him, because Jesus is One.

            Some people want to solve the question by saying Jesus was not really forsaken by God – saying it’s just an expression.  But that can’t be; Jesus had to suffer the fullness of God’s Wrath for every sin of every person who would ever believe in Him.  If Jesus did not experience the full horror and suffering of eternal Hell on the cross for each person who would believe and each sin that we would ever commit, then Jesus didn’t save us – He didn’t do enough.

            We come understanding that Jesus had to receive the full penalty on our behalf for us to be free – to be right with God – so, somehow, as Jesus received the full Wrath of God upon Him, satisfying God’s Justice – somehow – God really deserted Jesus – He turned His Face away – and somehow – Jesus endured Hell alone.

            If Jesus was truly forsaken, then we can be assured that we will never be forsaken by God.  Jesus promised:  “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5, ESV).  Jesus can only make that promise if He was truly forsaken by God for us.

            And, in those times when we experience something less than the forsakenness of Jesus on the cross – when we are experiencing a separation from God – since Jesus has been forsaken in our place, we can call out to God for help, and He will hear us.

            “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.  In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.  To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.”

            David acknowledged that the problem is not with God – it is never with God.  God is forever Holy; it is we humans who disrupt the communion we have with God.  We rebel and through our fists up in the air.  Yet, David recalls the history of Israel – how Israel trusted in the Lord, and when they cried out to God and trusted in Him, He rescued them.  Based on this pattern in history, David cried out in the Name of God’s Holiness to save him.

            God did not forsake Jesus due to sin on either part of the Godhead – God forbid!  No, it is because God is Holy and cannot tolerate sin in His Presence that before the foundation of the world the Triune God planned that the Son would come to earth and pay the debt for His people.  God would not be holy or just if He just “forgot” our sin.  We are forgiven, not because God forgot our sin, but because Jesus was punished for all of our sin.  God’s Justice had to be met – the debt to God had to be paid, and God chose to pay it Himself, and because He is Holy, He could pay the debt and live, being our Substitute that we also may live in the presence of our Holy God.

            “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.  All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; ‘He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!’”

            The moment a believer suffers – the moment we cry out despairing of God’s Presence, the world is at our side to condemn our faith and lead us to “curse God and die” (Job 2:9b, ESV).

            And so David recounts that he was treated not as a man, but a worm as he suffered and waited on God.  And those around him, rather than encouraging him to hold fast to the promises of God, jeered at him and ridiculed his faith.

            Even more tragically, the crowd at the foot of the cross, the priests, even the others dying with Him, blindly called out at Jesus, having no concept of what was happening from Heaven to earth:  “And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, ‘You who would destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’ So also the chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him, saying, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him. For he said, “I am the Son of God.” And the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him in the same way’” (Matthew 27:39-44, ESV).

            “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother's breasts.  On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been my God.  Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.”

            David turned his mind to the blessing of God from his conception.  God caused David to come to fruition and survive birth into this world.  God gave him a mother and father who nourished and raised him physically and spiritually – that he knew the One God of Israel.  David – in the midst of his desperation – could look back and see how merciful and blessed God had been to him in the past and take hope in that as he cried out.

            How much greater did Jesus remember His own birth – the very Incarnation of God on earth!  What more blessed, more wonderful, more incomprehensibly amazing joy could there be as He reflected back to His volunteering to come to earth in the form of a man – to live under His own Law and then die for the sin of His people that we might be saved.

            Jesus could have remembered the day when “In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end’ (Luke 1:26-33, ESV). 

Reflecting on His Incarnation and life with Mary and Joseph – given to Him by God – He could be assured that the God Who brought Him into the world and declared Him to be His Beloved Son is worthy of trust, no matter what He might endure.

The author of Hebrews writes, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:1-2, ESV).

            “Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; they open wide their mouths at me,       like a ravening and roaring lion.  I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.  For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet— I can count all my bones— they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them,    and for my clothing they cast lots.”

            David was starving, without water.  He was dehydrated and faint – dizzy.  He was physically falling apart under the assault of whomever or whatever this event was.  He felt himself near death.  Those who came against him had the strength of bulls and the viciousness of dogs.

            And so we see these same things on the cross with Jesus:

            “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst’ (John 19:28, ESV).

            “And when they had crucified him, they divided his garments among them by casting lots” (Matthew 27:35, ESV).

            “so they said to one another, ‘Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be.’ This was to fulfill the Scripture which says, ‘They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.’  So the soldiers did these things,” (John 19:24, ESV).

            The Greek Orthodox Church, recognizing the unimaginable torture of crucifixion, has a prayer in their Good Friday liturgy which translates:  “By Thine unknown sorrows and sufferings, felt by Thee, but not distinctly known by us, have mercy upon us and save us” (in The Treasury of David, 1.343)

            “But you, O LORD, do not be far off!  O you my help, come quickly to my aid!  Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog!  Save me from the mouth of the lion!  You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!”

            David cried out that God would deliver him from the vicious, evil dogs that attacked him – humans who viciously opposed God.  He prayed for deliverance from the lion – from the devil and his minions.  And he declares the impending rescue – that God would save him, even as he is impaled on the horns of the ox.

            And so Jesus, after being crucified – impaled on the horns of a tree, forsaken, and despised by all those around Him, took confidence in His Father:  “Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last” (Luke 23:46, ESV). 

“I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:  You who fear the LORD, praise him!  All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!” 

            “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.  From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him.  The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD!  May your hearts live forever!  All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you.  For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations.  All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive.  Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.”

            David rejoices at the end of his psalm that God delivered him.  God was faithful and heard his cries and so, David, and all of Israel would praise God.  God did not despise David, even though he was a sinner, because He repented and was forgiven through the Savior Who was to come.

            In the end, David tells of a day when the entire world will turn and worship the Lord.  All the nations will bow down and praise Him.  Even those who have died will rise up and praise God – and those who have not yet been born will also rise up to praise the Lord.

            But on that first Good Friday, as Jesus breathed His last, and then His dead body was removed from the cross and placed in the tomb, the disciples didn’t understand there was victory coming.  They didn’t realize why Jesus had to be forsaken by God.

            But soon they would remember His Words, “Behold, the hour is coming, indeed it has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home, and will leave me alone. Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me. I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world” (John 16:32-33, ESV).

            As we receive the bread and the cup and meet with Jesus in the elements, let us remember that Jesus’s Body was torn apart on the cross, and more horrifically, Jesus was forsaken by God  – God deserted Jesus as He bore all of God’s Wrath against us on Himself.  That we would be forgiven, that we could cry out to God and be heard, and, as the disciples found out on Sunday:  Jesus overcame the world.

            Let us pray:

            Almighty God and Savior, we cannot imagine what it was like to be crucified.  Even less can we imagine what it was for Jesus to be forsaken by You.  The physical horror causes us to melt in fear; trying to grasp that the Incarnate God was deserted by God leaves us in denial or in a daze.  Help us to understand something of the enormity of the Work Jesus accomplished on the cross, and help us to go out from this place, not despairing, not looking for a cheap, American holiday, but, having met You in the Sacrament, may we go out praising You and announcing that You are victorious over the world.  For it is in Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.