Psalm 22 | “A Song for the Afflicted One”

Preston Highlands Baptist Church

The Bible Tells One Story

One reason it can be hard to read the Bible is because we don’t see how it all connects. It feels disjointed and confusing so we struggle to keep reading, especially the Old Testament.

To get the most out of the Bible, we have to understand that it tells one story. If we only read one chapter out of a book, without reading anything that happens before or afterward in the book, we wouldn’t understand or appreciate the book. We might learn about some of the characters and see a part of the action, but we wouldn’t know how that chapter fits into the larger story.

Psalm 22 and Jesus

The Bible is telling one story, so when we read a chapter we always need to see how it fits into the larger story or we won’t understand the chapter. How does Psalm 22 connect to the larger story of what God is doing through Jesus?

Jesus makes this one easy for us because he quotes Psalm 22:1 while he’s on the cross. After he was nailed to the cross and had hung there for several hours, Jesus cried out with a loud voice, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46) In the middle of the agony of his death, he screams out the first verse of Psalm 22. Every Jewish person would’ve recognized the reference and known that Jesus was referring to the whole psalm even though he only quoted the first verse.

Why does he refer to this Psalm in particular? Why would Jesus refer to a psalm written by King David a thousand years earlier? It’s because Jesus understood this psalm to be about his death. He quotes the first verse as a way of saying that the entire psalm captures the essence of what’s happening to him on the cross.

Trust in the Midst of Despair and Ridicule

At least thirteen Old Testament texts are quoted or alluded to in the passion narrative. Five of them are from Psalm 22. Let’s go through this psalm and look at the various ways that it was fulfilled by Jesus’ work on the cross.

The first thirteen verses of Psalm 22 illustrate David’s trust in God in the midst of despair and ridicule, which is a picture of Jesus’ situation on the cross.

In verses 1-2, David is in despair, thinking that God has abandoned him, wondering why God doesn’t answer him and do something. In verses 3-5, he remembers who God is and what he had done. God is holy and had delivered his people from slavery.

David’s faith in God during this time of confusion and despair led people to mock and taunt him (vv. 6-8). The words of David’s enemies are almost identical to what Jesus’ enemies said to him while he was on the cross. Matthew 27:41-43, “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.’”

Jesus was trusting in God and was being mocked for it. But he didn’t waver from doing what he was sent to do. Like David in verses 9-11, he knew that God had been with him from the beginning, so he remained steadfast. David was trusting in God in the midst of despair and ridicule, just as his greatest Son would while he hung on the cross.

An Execution Not Deserved

Verses 14-18 ramp up David’s experience of suffering. Verse 14, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint.” Fatal dehydration in verse 15, “My tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.” Evil men pierce his hands and feet in verse 16. His bony frame is exposed in verse 17, “All my bones are on display” (NIV).

These verses describe more than persecution or illness. They seem to be describing an execution. It’s interesting that nothing like this ever happened to King David. He wasn’t executed. He died peacefully as an old man in his palace.

Notice that there are no cries for justice in this section. In the Psalms, you’ll usually see the psalmist cry out to God for justice in the midst of suffering or persecution, but not here. It seems as if David is willing to submit to this punishment even though it’s not deserved.

Are you beginning to see why Jesus understood this Psalm to be about his death? He was executed in a way that matches this description. The apostle John even says that, after the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his garments and cast lots for them in fulfillment of verse 18 (Jn. 19:24). Jesus submitted to an execution that he didn’t deserve and he didn’t cry out for God to stop it.

God’s Rescue Leads to Praise and Proclamation

In verses 19-25, God rescues David from his enemies which leads him to praise God and proclaim his salvation. Rescue in verse 21 leads to proclamation and praise in verses 22-23.

What’s the basis of David’s proclamation and praise? Verse 24, “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted.”

David is led to proclaim and praise the goodness of God because God didn’t despise his suffering. He didn’t look down on the affliction of the afflicted one. In fact, just the opposite happened. God didn’t hide his face from the afflicted one and he heard him when he cried (v. 24b). In other words, God accepted the suffering of the one who was executed unjustly.

The suffering and death of Jesus wasn’t despised by God. Rather, it was accepted. We know this because he raised him from the dead. God validates, endorses, and confirms the efficacy and sufficiency of Jesus’ death by raising him from the dead.

Because the suffering of the afflicted One has been accepted by God, we’re led to respond just like David did, with proclamation and praise. Because of Jesus’ sacrificial death for our sins, we’re led to praise God for his goodness. Because God rescued Jesus from his afflictions we’re led to tell our brothers his name. God’s rescue leads to proclamation and praise.

A Universal Message

Notice in verses 26-31 who this message of rescue is for. It’s for the afflicted in verse 26, for all races and nations in verse 27, for the prosperous in verse 29, and for all generations in verse 30.

The proclamation of God’s rescue is for all classes of people. Rich and poor and middle class, Hispanic and Asian and African and American, young and old and middle-aged. All people and all kinds of people must hear this news.

What exactly is this news that all people must hear? According to this text, it’s the simple message that salvation isn’t something that we do but something that God has done. Verse 31, “They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.” The message that all must hear is that Jesus’ undeserved execution was accepted by God so that anyone who trusts in him and repents of their sins will also be accepted by God.

Jesus, Forsaken So We Can Be Accepted

Jesus was forsaken so we can be accepted. For the first time ever, Jesus the Son of God experienced separation from his Father while he hung on the cross. Jesus was forsaken by the Romans, the Jews, even his own followers. Now he’s forsaken by his Father.

Have you ever hurt so bad that all you can do is cry? The deepest pain we feel, the pain that brings out the most emotion in us, is the pain we experience in relationships. The agony and ache of losing a loved one, the betrayal or abandonment of a friend or spouse or parent touches the deepest part of us.

Why is Jesus in such agony? Because his Father has abandoned him, “Why have you forsaken me?” He didn’t just feel forsaken. He was forsaken. The Son is forsaken by the Father. But why?

To put it bluntly, it’s your fault. It’s my fault. Jesus was forsaken by the Father because of our sin. Jesus endured the agony of abandonment because our sin is worse than we think.

Because God is holy, he cannot even look at sin. The prophet Habakkuk says that the Lord has “purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (1:13). Our sin is so terrible and God is so holy that he can’t look at our sin. On the cross, our sin was put on Jesus. Therefore, because God can’t look at sin, he had to look away from Jesus. Because of our sin, the Father had to turn his back on the One he loved the most.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin.” And in Galatians 3:13, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us – for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.’” On the cross, Jesus became sin and was cursed by God because of it.

We usually don’t think our sin is that big a deal. We excuse it away by saying, “Nobody’s perfect,” “This is just how I am, this is my personality,” or “At least I’m not as bad as other people.” But we must come to terms with the fact that it’s our sin that Jesus suffered for. He didn’t die in some generic sense for the whole world. He died for your sin.

Our sin is so bad that it brought a curse upon Jesus. Your sin is not a small thing. It is a big thing. It created agony in Jesus’ soul. Does it do anything to you? Does it create any brokenness in you? Do you feel the effects of it on your soul? Do you hate it? Do you grieve it because you know that it hurt Jesus?

God cannot look on sin, so because he wanted to look on us, he had to place our sins on Jesus and then look away from him. He had to abandon Jesus in order to accept us. He had to punish Jesus in order to reward us. He had to forsake Jesus in order to come near to us.

Many of us know this but we don’t fully believe it, so we move back and forth between pride and self-loathing, depending on our performance. We either love ourselves or hate ourselves, depending on how we think we’re doing.

But the good news of the gospel is that our status before God is not at all dependent on our performance. “He has done it.” Or, as Jesus said right before he died, “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30). Jesus’ performance, not ours, is what matters.

How could our performance ever add anything to the price that Jesus paid? It can’t. When Jesus died on the cross, he made a full payment for our sins. So if you’re proud of your moral achievement, don’t be because it doesn’t add anything to what Jesus did. If you’re full of self-hate because of your sin, look to the cross and remember that Jesus paid your sin debt so you don’t have to punish yourself anymore. Jesus was punished to free you from pride and self-pity. He was abandoned so you could be accepted.

A Prayer for Help

Psalm 22 gives us a window into Jesus’ suffering, but it also tells us something about our own suffering. This psalm, in its original context, is simply a prayer for help. The psalmist doesn’t sense God’s care (vv. 1-2), other people are attacking and rejecting him (vv. 6-8, 12-13, 16-18), and he doesn’t feel like he can keep on living (vv. 14-15).

David is feeling pain and agony on every level. But his words express the pain and agony of anyone who suffers. Psalms like this are in the Bible as a model for how to talk about our pain because we all suffer. It’s a song filled with pain to help those in pain.

Hurt

Music still does this today. An artist will write a song out of a place of deep personal pain, but when they release it to the public it becomes a song for anyone who’s hurting. Recently I discovered a song Johnny Cash covered in 2002, the year before he died. It was a Nine Inch Nails song from the mid-90’s called “Hurt.” It goes like this:

I hurt myself today
To see if I still feel
I focus on the pain
The only thing that’s real
The needle tears a hole
The old familiar sting
Try to kill it all away
But I remember everything

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

I wear this crown of thorns
Upon my liar’s chair
Full of broken thoughts
I cannot repair
Beneath the stains of time
The feelings disappear
You are someone else
I am still right here

What have I become
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know goes away
In the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt

If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way

It’s a heavy song (the music video is even heavier). It’s a song about pain, addiction, regret, hopelessness, loneliness, shame, and grief.

Trent Reznor, the song’s original writer, called it a “valentine to the sufferer.” He said, “I wrote some words and music in my bedroom as a way of staying sane, about a bleak and desperate place I was in, totally isolated and alone.”

Reznor said he was “flattered” when he learned that Cash was covering his song, but he had his reservations when they first sent him the track. He said, “I listened to it and it was very strange. It was this other person inhabiting my most personal song. I’d known where I was when I wrote it. I know what I was thinking about. I know how I felt.”

But after he saw the music video, his thoughts changed. He said, “I wasn’t prepared for what I saw. What I had written in my diary was now superimposed on the life of this icon and sung so beautifully and emotionally. It was a reminder of what an important medium music is. Goosebumps up the spine. It really made sense. I thought: ‘What a powerful piece of art.’ I never got to meet Johnny, but I’m happy I contributed in the way I did. It wasn’t my song any more.”[1]

Johnny Cash took Trent Reznor’s song and made it his own. Those who listen to it in a sense make it their own.

Jesus’ Song for the Sufferer

In a similar way, on the cross Jesus took David’s song and made it his own. Anyone who listens to his dying words and takes them to heart is brought into contact with the pain of the singer himself.

By quoting Psalm 22 on the cross, Jesus identifies with the sufferer and joins the sufferer in their suffering. Old Testament scholar James Mays says this better than I could. He says:

“In his anguished cry to God when (Jesus) begins to recite this psalm (he) joins the multitudinous company of the afflicted and becomes one with them in their suffering. In praying as they do, he expounds his total identification with them. He gives all his followers who are afflicted permission and encouragement to pray for help. He shows that faith includes holding the worst of life up to God.”[2]

What do you do with your affliction? Where do you go with your pain? Do you try to outrun it? Do you avoid it through perfectionism or professional success? Do you mask it with humor and charisma? Do you ever stop long enough to listen to it and recognize Jesus with you in it?

Pretending things are okay when they’re not isn’t faith, and it isn’t what Jesus did. Jesus, modeling David, lifted his cries to God when he had no where else to go.

After Death, Resurrection

Psalm 22 is more than just a cry for help, it’s also a testimony that the cry was answered. You see this shift in the second line of verse 21, “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!” David cries out in his affliction and then praises God when his help comes.

The song descends into the depths of David’s pain. But David’s descent into despair is matched by his rise into praise (vv. 22-26). The result of his honest reckoning with the darkness of his life is a resurrection into a new life. After death, there was resurrection.

Jesus also descended into the deepest darkness, a fatal darkness, a descent matched and surpassed by his resurrection into new life and glory at his Father’s right hand.

What about you? Are you willing to walk into the darkness, to face all your fears, to let God save you from the evil that binds you? If you are, there’s a resurrection waiting for you on the other side.

[1]Johnny Cash’s Hurt: the story and meaning behind the classic song | Louder (loudersound.com)

[2]James L. Mays, Psalms, Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1994), 106.