A useful prayer, this psalm of despondency, because the life of faith is not a sustained, uninterrupted series of triumphs.

–Patrick Henry Reardon on Psalm 44 in Christ in the Psalms

At our Wednesday evening services we have been periodically (i.e., except during Advent, Lent, or when a minor festival falls on or close to a Wednesday) working through the Psalter. I wasn’t going to publish the one from January 27 on Psalm 36, partly because I wasn’t quite finished with my manuscript, and partly because I felt my language was not as precise as it ought to be. I publish it here at the request of a reader, advising you to (as always) compare carefully what I have written with Holy Scripture and follow the Word of God, not my writing, if I have deviated from the Scriptures in any respect.

LXX begins, “Planning sin, the lawless man converses within himself; there is no fear of God before his eyes.”

The lawless man doesn’t just sin. He plans it, intends to perform what is contrary to God’s Law, and he does it without fear, without respect for God.

Having the forgiveness of sins, we have freedom in the Gospel. But Holy Scripture warns us, “Do not use your liberty as a cloak for vice.”

Daily we commit sins of impulse, too numerous to track. Some of our sins we ourselves are not aware of. All sin is against God’s Law, and deserving of punishment, but there is a particularly horrible kind of sin that damages our souls: the planned sin. It is when we have opportunity to consider what God’s Word says, to know that a particular word or deed is against the Commandments, but to proceed with it anyway.

So there are two kinds of sin: that proceeding from the weakness of our flesh, and that proceeding from the rebellion in our souls. Our flesh will always assail us, but we must work to subdue it, chasten it through a disciplined life. In our weakness we sometimes stumble, but rebellion stumbles deliberately, not acknowledging sin as sin, not repenting, not seeking amendment.

We can learn what we need by looking at what the lawless, wicked man does not have: the fear of God.

We cannot manufacture this holy fear, conjure it up through spiritual experiences.

It comes from God’s mercy, which the ESV translates as “steadfast love.”

“Your steadfast love [mercy], O LORD, extends to the heavens…. How precious is your steadfast love [mercy], O God! … Oh, continue your steadfast love [mercy] to those who know you, and your righteousness to the upright of heart!”

God’s mercy, His deep and abiding love, manifested to us in the cross of Jesus, is the only remedy and cure for our corrupt, perverted souls.

And let us make no mistake: the lawless man, the wicked man who plans sin, is us. We do not have to search through the tabloids or the cable channels to find the lawless man. He resides deep within us, the part of even us regenerated, newborn ones that is rebellious, lawless, lacking the fear of God. That is what we mean when we say that we are simul iustus et peccator, simultaneously saint and sinner.

Let us petition our merciful Lord to quench within us the fire of rebellion and help us, when planning sin, to instead turn away from it and flee to God for mercy.

Psalm 33 rings out a new hope for the first time: the singing of the new song. “Sing to [the LORD] a new song; play skillfully on the strings, with loud shouts.” This is the first occurrence of six in the Hebrew Bible.

“Sing to the LORD a new song” is not a reference to contemporary music. It’s about the newness of the Gospel, a forever new song that can only be sung by those redeemed by the blood of the Lamb. All of our praise now anticipates the endless liturgy of heaven, where we will forever sing the new song.

I like to listen to the podcast of a radio program called “The Composers Datebook.” It’s a few minutes each day about a composer of serious art music. The show’s tagline is, “All music was once new.” Obviously they are trying to counteract the idea so popular today that old music is bad and boring; only the newest music is any good. The variant on this is that only the music that was popular when I was a teenager is any good.

The truth is, theologically speaking, there is no new music in this world. The world has run out of music. It sings the same old tune, lyrics repeating like a scratched record: Love that does not last; lust endlessly indulged but never satisfied; wars waged without ceasing. The song of this world always ends up as a funeral dirge, for that is ultimately all this world has to offer.

The old song of this world falsely takes confidence in passing things, which  vv16f addresses: a king who thinks he is saved by his great army, a warrior imagining his great strength will deliver him, a war horse giving hope where there truly is no hope.

So what is the content of the new song of faith? The lyrics of this song are revealed in Revelation. It is a song to the Lamb, Christ: “You are worthy to take the scroll, and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth…. Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom, and strength and honor and glory and blessing!”

Ps. 33 condenses all of this down into two thoughts, in v.4: “For the word of the LORD is upright, and all his work is done in faithfulness.” God’s Word and work – that is the theme of the new song of faith, the new song of the Gospel.

So that is our song as Christians – the new song of faith, the new song of the Gospel, that new song that praises God’s Word and work, the hymn to the Lamb who was slain for us. But as we gather together regularly as Christians to keep learning and singing this song, at the same time we find that the world is trying to drown out our song. There is a cacophony as these two songs clash; it’s hard to keep singing the new song when the world keeps luring us with her siren tune that leads away from Christ.

So we wait and hope, as tonight’s Psalm ends: “Our soul waits for the LORD … Let your steadfast love, O LORD, be upon us, even as we hope in you.” We wait and hope, knowing that the glorious Day is coming when the old song will be silenced forever, and we will sing with endless joy our ever-new canticle to the Lamb. +INJ+

Psalm 32

Evening Prayer

October 7, A+D 2009

Immanuel Evangelical-Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA

Our sins are horrible. Often done in secret, even the recesses of our mind, we fear discovery. If it becomes known what we have done, what we have thought, who we truly are, we will be exposed as frauds, hypocrites. So we hide who we are and what we have done. We hide it from others, and even ourselves. We lie.

And we fool many, maybe all. But God is not fooled. He cannot be fooled. He sees. He hears. He knows. Who we are, what we have done, cannot be covered from the penetrating gaze of His all-seeing eye.

What shall we do? There is only one thing to do: Confess. Come clean. Cover up our sins no more. “I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,’ and You forgave the iniquity of my sin.”

An amazing thing happens when we stop covering our own sins, and confess them: What we have uncovered, He covers. “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” He who sees all things chooses not to see what He has covered. He who knows all things forgets. He who marks every sin in His book blots them out.

Our works cannot justify us. Our efforts at covering up our sins always fail. But God justifies the ungodly. He covers up the things we deserve to have exposed for our shame, ridicule, and expulsion. He does not do this on a whim. It does not come easily. What is covered on us was exposed in Jesus. They literally stripped Him of His garments, just as He was stripped of all honor. Put to death like a murderer. Beaten as a rebel. All for you. So you could be covered, clothed with righteousness in Baptism. When you come to this church for the last time, we will cover up your dead body with the funeral pall, confessing that the God who covered your sins in Christ will raise up your body on the last day to live forever in His kingdom.

So blessed are you, “against whom the LORD counts no iniquity.” That is the reason why you should “Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!” +INJ+

The actual sermon preached on Ps. 31 ended up being quite a bit different from this, but here was my manuscript for the sermon at last night’s Evening Prayer:

The center of tonight’s Psalm is found in the words, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit.” In Luke’s Gospel, these are the final words of Jesus, and that helps us understand not only the Psalm but the meaning of our Lord’s death. Only the Lord JESUS could be confident in commending His spirit to God; for only He had nothing to be ashamed of. No sin could be counted against Him. No deeds done in secret to trouble His conscience; no words He needed to take back. Nothing left undone. Into the Father’s hand He committed His spirit, knowing that the Father would bring Him through death to the resurrection.

It is entirely in Christ that we pray this Psalm and make it our own. For if we sinners, as we are, were committed to the Father’s judgment, there would be hell to pay. Literally. But Christ is our mediator. In Him and through Him, God has mercy on us. So living and dying we can commend our spirits into the hand of the Father, confident that He will not give us what we deserve, but what He has promised in Christ.

Praying this Psalm carries us inside the passion of Jesus. In these words, we enter into His experience of suffering. “My life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing.” “My strength fails … my bones waste away…. I have become a reproach … and an object of dread.” We can almost feel the ground pounding with the footsteps of the disciples, fleeing as Jesus is arrested. “I have been forgotten like one who is dead.” We can feel the clubs crashing into his bloodied flesh, and hear Christ say, “I have become like a broken vessel.” The people stare at him, and the priests mock: “I hear the whispering of many – terror on every side!” And the crowd is stirred up to cry out for his death; “They scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.” And to all of this, how does our Savior respond? “But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’”

How have we responded, how will we respond to trouble? Many things happen to derail the course we had set for ourselves. We’ve experienced that as a church in the last few years, and you’ve probably experienced that as well in your personal life. Events that you had not foreseen ruined an evening or a year; and things you hoped and dreamed would come to pass never did. And time slips swiftly away like a rapidly flowing river, with the current carrying away what you once hoped could be. This Psalm gives us the proper view of time and the events of our lives: “My times are in your hand.”

A disciple is not above his teacher, and so as we seek to live in Jesus, we also will suffer hardship and even persecution. Lying lips will rise up, pride and contempt will try to tear us down and bring our Lord’s church down. Each time this happens, we must confess our own failings first – because unlike our Lord JESUS, we are never without sin. And then, we must learn to respond to all difficulties and strife as our Lord did, praying, “Into your hand I commit my spirit,” and wait with hope for our final deliverance.

The certainty of that deliverance is the content of the psalm’s final exhortation: “Be strong, and let your heart take courage!” This is what we take courage in: just as the Lord Jesus is risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity, so shall all those who have been united with Him in His death in the waters of Holy Baptism. +INJ+

Tonight’s psalm exhorts us to “Worship the LORD in the splendor of holiness.” “Splendor” by itself in the Bible means “beauty.” It can refer to radiant things seen in nature, a handsome man, or the luxuries of wealthy people. Proverbs 31 uses it to describe the ideal wife. It often describes the majesty of the king, and is used as a verb to describe beautiful clothing. This diversity of applications has led to two traditions in English Bible translations of the phrase in Ps. 29.2, “Splendor of holiness.” That phrase occurs four times in the OT. KJV: “Beauty of holiness”; RSV: “Holy array,” a reference to the sacred vestments worn by the priests.

Recent research in ancient texts [source: TWOT], however, suggests a third option: the awe that should be upon the worshipper when he is in the LORD’s presence. That would make the passage mean, more precisely, “Worship [prostrate] yourselves before the LORD when He appears in holiness.”

How did that apply in the time of the Jews? Look at the temple Solomon built for the LORD. He sought to reflect the LORD’s splendor: The finest wood and stone, overlaid with gold, and decorated with golden cherubim, with carved figures of palm trees and flowers – the LORD’s house depicted the splendor of God and and an earthly paradise.

But the call of this Psalm is not just to regard earthly beauty – but when one comes to the knowledge of the presence of YHWH, one falls down in worship, prostrate before the God who blesses His people with peace.

And what was it all for – this elaborate temple, the detailed requirements of sacrifice, the beautiful vestments and solemn chanting? Everything had at its center “the voice of the LORD.” Seven times in this Psalm that phrase thunders out: “The voice of the LORD,” Qol YHWH, Qol Adonai, “The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders.”

The LORD’s glory is like a looming storm; He thunders, and the waters are churned; He breathes out and a whirlwind snaps giant cedars like toothpicks; His lightning flashes and bolts of fire crash from the heavens. Prostrate yourself before the LORD of the storm, the Psalm calls. Worship Him, give glory to His name! The worship of Him is no game, it is no show designed to entertain you, amuse you. No chicken soup for the Hebrew soul is served here! The voice of the LORD thunders, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand!”

In this life we have other storms as well. Betrayal and lies, trials and tears, sadness and loss, death and despair. The storms that send floodwaters up to our neck are gifts, though we can barely see them as such. They drive us to the LORD of the storm, whom we know to calm storms with a single word.

Above the flood the LORD sits enthroned, blessing His people with peace.

To us NT sons of God, the great blessing of peace has been revealed in the Christ, our Lord JESUS. So when He appears in His holiness at this altar, veiled beneath bread and wine, we kneel and worship, receiving our LORD as He comes to us in His holiness. At that very moment, the voice of the LORD announces His judgment: “Given and shed for you for the remission of sins. Depart in peace.”

Ascribe to the LORD, then, you sons of God, ascribe to the LORD the glory due His name!

Portions of this are adapted from Patrick Henry Reardon’s phenomenal Christ in the Psalms. Except the part on forensic and infused righteousness. He’s entirely wrong on that.

Tonight’s psalm is traditionally to be prayed by the Pastor as he is washing his hands to prepare for Communion, on account of the verse, “I wash my hands in innocence and go around your altar, O LORD.” Because the only innocent man to have lived is the Son of God, our Lord JESUS Christ, we can understand this psalm, like all the preceeding, as Christological.

But is it not also true that as we are in Christ because we are joined to Him in Baptism, that we also are called to innocency of life? That is why St. Paul exhorts us in the first lesson this evening, “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” We see here what God particularly has in mind by this blamelessness: that there be no unnecessary arguing or fighting in the church. The innocence our Lord calls us to is reflected in our treatment of one another, that even when we disagree, we live in peace and love with one another; and the only cause for division in the church – may God keep us from it! – is when false doctrine or immoral behavior is consistently approved and condoned, and then only after all proper warnings and admonitions have have lovingly given, in a spirit of humility and longsuffering.

The church is a place of forgiveness, pardon, and release – from us to our brothers and sisters because God has released us from the impossible debt we owed Him. That is why we sing with joy, “O LORD, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells.”

The innocence that we are called to have and exhibit towards each other – the innocence of harmonious words and setting aside wrangling and disputing – this innocence is not something we derive from within ourselves. We can only begin to exhibit it because we have first been cleansed by our Master: “If I do not wash you, you have no part with Me,” said Jesus.

This washing of Jesus is a forensic declaration, a legal verdict: “You are washed, you are clean, you are innocent, you have a part, share, inheritance with Jesus.” And that forensic declaration, that legal verdict that you are holy and blameless begins to transform us and change us now, a transformation that itself is the work of God, a work which will be brought to completion in the day of our Lord JESUS Christ.

That good work, that transformation, that life of innocency we pray for when we declare an intention to live a new life that is paired immediately with a supplication for mercy: “But as for me, I shall walk in my integrity; redeem me, and be gracious to me.”

And none of this happens on our own; we cannot be Christians by ourselves. Just as you gain in-laws by marriage, that you may or may not get along with all that well, so has God set us into a new family of brothers and sisters in Christ, and said, “Love one another,” even – no, especially – when you don’t particularly want to. We are never Christians by ourselves, for we always say not “My Father,” but, “Our Father.” Thus our psalm concludes, “In the great assembly I will bless the LORD.”

Blessed be the God who has declared us innocent through the blood of the LORD JESUS Christ, and may we grow in innocency and walk in integrity all the days of our lives, until we are gathered to the great heavenly assembly where we will bless the LORD unto the ages of ages.

Ps. 25 is an acrostic poem, meaning the verses begin with successive letters of the Hebrew alphabet. But more importantly, it is a Psalm that describes the single-minded devotion of the child of God, and beautifully states the way of salvation. David begins, “To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. O my God, in you I trust.” Everything that follows is a commentary on those words: what it means to have a soul lifted up towards God, placing all trust in Him.

Those words, “I lift up my soul,” express the same thing as when we say in the Divine Service, in the Preface to the Holy Communion liturgy, “Lift up your hearts. We lift them up unto the Lord.” These words from the Psalm and from the liturgy call us to set our desire upon God Himself, to long for Him, His Word, His truth. The words from the beginning of this Psalm, and in the liturgy, are our response to the exhortation of St. Paul, “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.”

The “things that are above” are the ways and paths of the LORD, while the “things that are on earth” are the ways and paths of fallen man. This theme persists throughout the Psalm, beginning with the prayer in verse 4, “Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths.” What are the ways and paths of the LORD? The Psalm itself explains: “He teaches the humble his way. All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness.” Thus to walk in the way of the LORD is to have the same mind as the LORD – a mind of mercy and compassion.

To these, the Psalm gives this promise: “The friendship of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant.” The word here translated friendship is rendered by the NKJ as secret, but neither really get at the heart of the meaning. The Hebrew word that David uses means council or counsel. The one who fears God, reverences Him, has respect for Him and His Word, receives and benefits from His counsel, exhorting the man of God to trust in the LORD’s mercy and likewise to show mercy to others.

Where do we get that counsel? There is a liturgical, sacrificial meaning to the verse, “My eyes are ever toward the LORD.” That word “ever” frequently indicates the regular sacrifices of the tabernacle, the daily prayers and rituals at the LORD’s altar. When the psalmist says, “My eyes are ever toward the LORD,” he is saying that he keeps on persistently in the appointed worship and prayers of the tabernacle even while he is “trapped,” with his feet in the net. He keeps on and persists because he is confident that the LORD will deliver.

Now the heart of God’s deliverance, the Psalm makes clear, is the forgiveness of sins: “For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great…. Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins.”

Another important theme in this Psalm is in eyes, looking and seeing. Verses 15, 18, and 19 all go together: v15, My eyes look toward the LORD; and in vv18-19, the word “consider” is actually in Hebrew “look”: Our eyes are toward the LORD where He has promised to be (in the OT, in the sacrifices of the altar; and in the NT, in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross and the delivery of that sacrifice to us in the sacrament of the altar)—our eyes are toward that, and then we have a prayer for the LORD to put His eyes on us, to look on my affliction and trouble, and forgive all my sins. Then, in v19, we ask the LORD to look at, consider our many enemies, who are assailing us and trying to turn us away from God.

We are constantly in danger, danger even from ourselves, so the next prayer is, “Oh, guard my soul!” We cannot sustain ourselves, we are helpless and hopeless on our own, thus we need God to guard, keep, watch, preserve our souls.

Then finally the psalmist prays what is the heart of the Gospel “Redeem Israel” – redeem, ransom, these are words of the vicarious satisfaction. Everything depends on God’s action to deliver us, for by ourselves, we have our feet in the net, and the sins of our past troubling us and counting against us. Everything, this Psalm makes clear, depends on God’s action for us: He forgives, He guards, He redeems.

So when we die, we want to have these words on our lips: “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions; remember me for Your mercy’s sake, O LORD.” Thus we make our dying prayer, where everything rests on the mercy of God. +INJ+

The Twenty-Third Psalm is doubtless the best-known and most-loved Psalm in all Christendom. Many children learn it at a young age; I memorized it in the King James version probably by the time I was in Kindergarten. I didn’t know why at the time, but the Church gave me the clear message that this Psalm was important. 

It is a psalm of David, the King, and he likely wrote it during the rebellion of Absalom, David’s treacherous son who usurped, for a time, the kingdom. David had to retreat from the holy city. This psalm articulates his confidence that YHWH will care for him throughout the ordeal and deliver him from his enemies. Most importantly, though, is David’s yearning to return to the house of the LORD – that is the desire of his heart. “I will dwell in the house of the LORD” is translated literally by a seemingly-odd expression: “I shall return in the house of YHWH.” It is that “return” that reflects David’s current state of exile; and when understood in that context, we see that David is not wishing for a far-off heaven, but the desire of his heart is to be restored to Jerusalem and worship God in His tabernacle.

Now we have emphasized throughout our journey through the Psalms thus far the Christological content of the Psalms – namely, that Jesus is at the center of the Psalms and their meaning for us. That is true in this psalm, but in a different way than, say, the previous psalm (22), where we see the suffering Christ vividly portrayed: pierced, parched, mocked, his enemies casting lots for His clothes, His God forsaking Him. Jesus is not just the interpretative key of that psalm, He is its subject.

In Ps. 23, however, Jesus is not the subject, David is; and by extension, we are, all disciples of Jesus are. Jesus is the shepherd, and we are the sheep, as the Holy Scriptures make so very clear. Thus the LORD—YHWH—in this psalm is Christ, who said, “I am the Good Shepherd.”

But there is a very comforting image in the way the Psalm puts it, that shows the active nature of Christ’s care for us. “The LORD is my Shepherd” expresses an identity, a relationship between us and Him; but the way the Hebrew renders it shows more directly His constant tending of us during our times of greatest need: “YHWH is shepherding me,” and the Hebrew here articulates an ongoing activity, so that we should understand, “YHWH is shepherding and keeps on shepherding me, and because of this, I lack nothing.” “Want” is old English, but I don’t think it gets the meaning across. I want a new car, I want the Twins to win the World Series, I have been really wanting some new, very expensive modules for my computer Bible program. Sometimes the things we want are wholesome in themselves, but God has not granted them; sometimes what we want is bad for us; but in any event, Holy Scripture does not promise us that we will always get everything we want. What is promised, though, is that we will have everything we need for salvation. If we have YHWH, then we have all good things, and lack nothing. Consequently we can trust in the LORD each day for our daily bread; having food and clothing, with these we will be content.

Believing that, we can go through even the valley of the shadow of death without fear. The actual Hebrew expression is “deep darkness”; picture David on the run, with his son Absalom on his throne. He is wandering through the Middle Eastern wilderness, with danger lurking in every shadow: danger from bandits, danger from animals, and danger from falling; for David, death looms. One slip around the crevices in these narrow passes around mountains, and you could plummet into what seemed like hell itself. Despite all this, with YHWH as Shepherd, David confidently confesses: there is no need to fear.

From there, David’s vision, given by the Holy Spirit, moves from the LORD as his Shepherd to the LORD as his Host in a banquet hall. There, before enemies put to silence, he believed that God would pour oil on his head and fill his cup to the brim with the finest of wines. From there, David moves to the deepest longing of his soul: the Tabernacle, the altar of God. I will return there, and spend all the length of days, even eternity, in the presence of YHWH, the LORD.

So what does this mean for us? As David moves from his vision of a field with still water, to banquet hall, to temple, so we spiritually move in our application of the psalm from the water of Baptism, to the banquet hall of the Eucharist, to eternity in the new creation where God Himself dwells with us and we in His house. For both David and us, the psalm moves from tribulation to death to resurrection.

We may not be chased from our home or disowned by our family, but our lives now the deep darkness, the fear, the betrayal, the disappointment, the depression. We have enemies, we have predators, we have dangers. But through it all, our LORD promises that He is shepherding us. Christ your Good Shepherd has performed the ultimate sacrifice of a shepherd, laying down His life for you. Be at peace, then, dear child of God, for you lack no good thing. He has led you to the quiet waters of regeneration; He has filled your cup with His own blood, pouring into your body His own life; and you will at the last day rise from the dead and dwell in the house of the LORD for an unending length of days. +INJ+

We resumed our Wednesday evening series on the Psalms last night.

When our Lord Jesus despairs, when He experiences the utter dereliction of the human race, when He suffers all the humiliation, all the agony, all the fear and sorrow and loneliness and pain a man can experience; when He has the punishment for all the world’s rebellion hammered into His hands and slammed down onto His head, when He experiences the wrath of God and the abandonment of His Father, He turns to the Psalms. He takes the despair of the Psalms and makes it His own; what is more, in His passion all the things written in the Psalms are discovered to have been written first and foremost about Him.

And when He says those incomprehensibly horrible words, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” we see confidence and trust shining through the despair. For in His forsakenness Jesus does the only thing there is to do: to say, “My God!” And He keeps on saying it. The words recorded in the Gospel are, I believe, intended to drive us to their source in Psalm 22. They serve as a kind of footnote or shorthand, suggesting that Jesus prayed this psalm, and others, during His passion.

In this prayer of our Lord Jesus Christ, then, we see Him reminding the Father of His deliverance of Israel in the past. He is mocked for trusting in the Father, with the implication that God will not save Him. “Yet You are He,” Christ says, “who took Me from the womb; You made Me trust You at My mother’s breasts.” He was conceived in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary for this purpose, to take on our human nature and put sin to death. From the time He was a nursing infant, He trusted in the Father’s love and care for Him.

And though the Father loves Him, He allows Jesus to be poured out like water, as a spear opens His side, blood and water spilling out. Christ’s “strength is dried up like a potsherd, and [His] tongue sticks to His jaws,” so He cries out, “I thirst,” but is only given a bitter drink. He is laid in the dust of death, while Roman thugs divide His garments and gamble for His clothing.

The Father does not come to His aid. He should have. It would have been just. It was the only fair thing to do. If anyone deserved help, if anyone had cause for God to come quickly to his aid, it was Jesus. But no help comes. He is abandoned, forsaken, left to die. Alone. Humiliated.

We deserved to be surrounded by bulls, encompassed by dogs, encircled by a company of evildoers – but our Lord assumes to Himself not only our nature but also our guilt.

Now there is a significant transition in Ps. 22 which our translation tonight does not show. In v21, a better translation would be, “Save me from the mouth of the lion, and from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered me.” And there is the point of change. Up until that verse, the Psalmist, prophesying the experience of Christ on the cross, has been crying out to God but not answered. “O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer.” He is abandoned, forsaken, derided, and finally executed. All the things you may have suffered – pain, loss, depression, despair – our Lord endured in full.

But in this Psalm we see Christ and we see our hope. At the last, when all hope seems lost, when everything is darkness, fire, and death, when the disciple of Jesus cowers in fear, when the enemies of God laugh and party, when creation cloaks itself in deepest gloom – when no hope remains, then the LORD God answers, and the remainder of the Psalm is occupied with the praise of God for His mighty deliverance. “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.” Our heavenly Father heard the cries of our Lord Jesus, and because you are in Him, joined to Him, baptized to Him, because He is your Brother, your cries of dereliction, depression, despair are heard. Your cries for mercy, your cries for pardon, your cries for help, even the faint cries of a person uncertain, He hears and answers. For He will not snuff out a smoking wick, and He will not snap in half a bruised reed.

You cannot keep yourself alive, you will, unless our Lord returns first, go down to the dust – but you, though you go down to the dust, shall nevertheless eat and worship again in the kingdom of heaven, and we shall proclaim the praises of God, and the Lamb who was forsaken for our sakes; we shall proclaim and sing and give glory for ever and ever and unto ages of ages, because He is faithful and will answer. Believe it and rejoice!