THE SUFFERING KING
Psalm 22
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
It is interesting that we come to this Psalm immediately after the two Psalms we had considered about how God blesses and grants victory to the king and how those Psalms anticipate the greater King who was to come in the person of Jesus. Even for the king/King, night is a part of their journey.
The faithfulness of God is seen and sung about in the bright sunshine but in the dark gloom of the night the king clings the faithfulness of God. However, the night, just like the Valley of the Shadow of Death, is only a passage, not a destination. God’s faithfulness can be relied upon, as we also rely on the sun to appear and warm our days again after winter.
But the most interesting aspect of this Psalm is how closely it reflects the suffering of our Lord. “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) was the cry of Jesus on the Cross before he breathed his last.
“You lay me in the dust of death” then becomes a picture of God gently letting his Son slip away into the dust of death.
Read the Psalm again, this time from the mouth of Jesus as he hung on the cross and see how he clings to God and trusts him to deliver him and raise him to life again.
The rest of the verses, from vv25-31, can then take the form of praise to our Lord and King. It is finished! He has done it!
“Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!”