God rescues the suffering psalmist so suddenly you think you missed a line or two. “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!” (Psalm 22:20,21). So abruptly.
Joyful Praise from Sudden Rescue. David’s joy erupts. He invites friends to a feast to hear his praise to the LORD. “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!” (Psalm 22:22-26).
Profuse Praise Turns to Prophetic Praise. Even Gentile nations will repent and worship the Lord. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (22:27).
Why? “For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations” (22:28). The LORD to whom David has prayed is King of the World. Even some of the arrogant self-sufficient will turn and join the humble at the worship feast: “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” (22:29). Even unborn generations will be there! “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” (22:30,31).
Has David turned tipsy from too much worship feast wine? Can he really mean the whole earth, even future generations, will praise the Lord for rescuing him from his anguish? What David understood we can’t be sure. But from our vantage point 3000 years later, we see that David’s psalm looked forward to far more agonizing suffering and a far more joyful worship feast . . .
Prophecy Fulfilled. A thousand years after David, outside Jerusalem, three Jews hang from three Roman crosses. “Now about the sixth hour there was darkness over the land until the ninth hour. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (Aramaic and Hebrew) that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?'” (Matthew 27:45,46). Jesus was wailing David’s words. As David complained of mockers at his suffering (Psalm 22:6-8), so when Jesus was crucified ” . . . those who passed by derided him . . . and the “chief priests, with the scribes and elders, mocked him . . . “ and ” . . . the robbers who were crucified with him also reviled him” (Matthew 27:39-43). David had cried out, ” . . . they have pierced my hands and feet” (Psalm 22:16)–crucifixion language from a man who wasn’t crucified (Matthew 27:35). As David had watched his clothing divided up by his persecutors (Psalm 22:18), so ” . . . they divided [Jesus’] garments among them by casting lots” (Matthew 27:35).
You see, David’s suffering foreshadowed Jesus’ crucifixion. David’s rescue foreshadowed Jesus’ resurrection. David’s seemingly exaggerated worldwide, generational praise foreshadowed the day when we who have trusted Jesus will be ” . . . invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Revelation 19:9).
Our Hope. So we identify with the psalmist’s suffering in Psalm 22:1-21a. And we can–we must–grab onto the psalmist’s joy in Psalm 22:21b-31. For this is our ultimate hope. Though the Lord rescues us who believe in him from the guilt and power of sin; yet in this fallen, sin-cursed world we still suffer. And our ultimate hope for rescue lies in the suffering of Christ by which our sins are forgiven, and in the mighty resurrection of Christ by which we are born again into the new-creation kingdom of God where he will wipe every tear from our eyes forever.
Where Is God When We Need Him? In a Nazi concentration camp Jewish prisoners were forced to watch three hang, one just a boy. A voice among them muttered, “Where is merciful God? Where is he?” The hanging over, the prisoners were made to pass before the victims, where the boy still swung not yet dead. That’s when Elie Wiesel, author of the book Night, silently answered, “Where is [God]? This is where–hanging here on this gallows.”
Overcome by human cruelty, Weisel meant God is dead like those victims. He was wrong. God wasn’t on those gallows. But God was once on a cross–where we needed him most. Suffering for us–to save us from the cause of all our suffering, sin. Not only dying, but rising–to invite us to a joyful worship feast where we’ll be free from suffering forever.
When We’ll Never Ask That Question Again. The day is coming when we will hear a voice make the proclamation: “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with men. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3). In the new creation, God won’t live in heaven but with us, his people who have trusted his Son. God himself will be among us as our God to dry every tear and remove every pain forever. And never again will we ask, “Where is God when we need him?”
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