Psalm 22:1-15

October 15, 2006, First Presbyterian Church of Dutch Neck

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. To you they cried, and were saved; in you they trusted, and were not put to shame. But I am a worm, and not human; scorned by others, and despised by the people. All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, they shake their heads; “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver – let him rescue the one in whom he delights!” Yet it was you who took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. On you I was cast from my birth, and since my mother bore me you have been my God. Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. Many bulls encircle 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 mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death.

Psalm 22 is a psalm of lament. Not only that, it is a forceful psalm of lament. It seems to come from the very depths of the psalmist’s pain. This is no small complaint for God’s ears – “Lord, I know this is your will, so it must be good, but it’s just hard for me to understand.” No, the Psalmist holds nothing back: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It seems to be a profound kind of pain that the psalmist is experiencing.

Then, in a few scattered verses throughout the Psalm, we find words of praise to God! When we read this psalm, we may find this strange. It seems like in such deep pain, the psalmist would have a hard time even addressing God, let alone continuing to praise God. When we wonder about this, we wonder not just because we are curious about the Bible. We wonder at the psalmist’s courage to lament and praise because we too have felt forsaken by God.

Now, it is a joyful thing to be a Christian. The Bible proclaims God’s love for God’s children, and we see evidence of that love in our daily lives. We rightly see God the creator as the source of blessings in our lives. But we know, too, that being a Christian is not a ticket to a rosy life. What about the times when that same loving God is nowhere to be found? What about the times when someone we love is taken away from us? What about the times when physical pain keeps us from living an ordinary life? What about the times when we are teased by classmates, even by those whom we considered to be our best friends? What about the times when depression grips our mind and steers us toward despair? It is at times like these that we too, cry out, “Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?”

When I started reading through this Psalm, I said to myself, “I’m in a good place in life right now. This psalm of lament doesn’t really speak to me. Why don’t I skip Psalm 22 and move on to the next one, the one with the green pastures and the quiet waters and the cup overflowing. That’s the kind of faith experience that I like to think about.” But as a member of the Christian community, I need to recognize that I am deeply in need of lament. Here’s one reason: October is domestic violence awareness month, a month in which we as a nation recognize our problem – that one in four women will experience domestic violence at some point in her life. We must work for change, certainly, but we also must lament that this is happening. It is at times like these that we too, cry out, “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest.”

How on earth or in heaven, we wonder, does the psalmist have the guts to turn around and say, “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” Praises? Where did this come from?

What we see in verses four and five are a kind of snapshot of God from the past. The Psalmist remembers God’s faithfulness to the people of Israel throughout their history. Because the psalmist can see God nowhere in the present, he or she needs to dig into the past to remember that God actually does care about God’s people. “In you our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them.” After this, the Psalm goes back to lamenting. Nevertheless, the readers now know that the God who has “forsaken me” is also “…the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” in love and faithfulness. God has been good to the people in the past. It is this sense of communal memory that enables the psalmist to praise.

In verses nine and ten, another snapshot is pulled out of the family album. The first photo was of God’s faithfulness to the whole family. This second snapshot is of God’s faithfulness in the psalmist’s own life. The sense of trust that the psalmist felt in God is so secure and so innocent that the picture is one of a nursing baby.

It is not that the psalmist still feels as safe as a nursing baby. After all, the very next verse talks about being surrounded by violent beasts! However, for just a moment the psalmist remembers the times in life when God seemed very near. It was like being a baby – almost asleep in mother’s strong arms, being gently rocked back and forth. God has been good to me in the past. It is this sense of individual memory that enables the psalmist to praise.

As human beings in this world, we understand the Psalmist’s cry of lament. We speak the Psalmist’s cry of lament – we have to! As Christians, we cannot put on a false front and pretend that our faith makes everything okay. But, we do have a sort of snapshot of our own to look back at – a snapshot that is brought to mind by this very Psalm.

Most of us recognize these words from either Matthew or Mark. “From noon on, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And about three o’clock Jesus cried with a loud voice, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” The Psalmist’s deep cry of lament was recited by Jesus on the cross. The snapshot that we remember as Christians, then, is not one of Jesus smiling on us while we continue along in our miseries. The snapshot is one of Jesus in deep pain and agony. The snapshot is one of darkness covering the land and the son of God dying a humiliating and painful death. This is anything but a false front. We Christians do not have a God who cannot feel pain, who sits and watches while we flounder in this world. No, we have a God who stoops down, sits next to us, and joins us in crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Nicholas Wolterstorff is a Christian philosopher who lost his 25-year-old son in a mountain climbing accident. Wolterstorff experienced crushing grief after this loss. He also realized things about God that he never had before. He wrote, “How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song – all without lifting a finger that we could see. You have allowed bonds of love beyond number to be painfully snapped. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself. We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer we catch sight of God himself scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God.” (Lament for a Son. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987. 80)

In Jesus, we have an empathetic fellow-sufferer. But, praise God, we also have an empathetic Savior. The very pain that brings Jesus down to our level is the same pain that, in the mystery of God’s love, brings us up into communion with God. God suffers our pain, but God is also greater than our pain.

We can’t wish away our suffering, as much as we would like to. What we can do in the midst of that suffering is to hope with confidence for the day when “…God will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.” (Rev. 21:4)

What, then, are we to do in the mean time? We live lives of pain in a world of pain, but we have hope. We don’t have a cheap hope that comes with a wink and a smile, but our hope is in the crucified one whom we call our Lord. We lament, knowing that Christ laments alongside us.

When we encounter others in pain, we give them a snapshot of Christ as well. This snapshot does not come from simply saying, “Jesus loves you,” (though that is certainly true) nor by reciting platitudes, however true they may be as well. The way that we Christians can truly point to Christ in the midst of suffering is to lament alongside of those who lament! We can witness to the Lord who laments when we are willing to lament ourselves. Wolterstorff, in the midst of his own lamenting, wrote, “Your words don’t have to be wise. The heart that speaks is heard more than the words spoken. And if you can’t think of anything at all to say, just say, ‘I can’t think of anything to say. But I want you to know that we are with you in your grief.’” (34)

We lament in the company of the whole body of Christ. We lament, knowing that Christ himself laments with us. We lament, knowing that our crucified Lord is now our risen Lord. We lament until the day when he comes again. Even so, come Lord Jesus!