Psalm 22
Psalm 22, Matthew 26:36-46, Luke 22:44, Hebrews 4:15-16… 5:7-10, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
I first remember reading this Psalm when I was a Freshman in college. I had spent the last year prepping and planning to marry the girl I was dating, only to be dumped after a weekend of ring shopping. I was destroyed, and the Christian platitudes I had grown up hearing about “God having something better for me” didn’t speak to the pain that I was feeling. I wanted to mourn, to lament, and to challenge God for what felt like a withdrawal of his affection from me. I just didn’t know how to do it. After all, were we allowed to be upset with God? Were we allowed to talk to him and ask him what he was doing in the world and why he was doing it that way? To my Church-after-school-program-frequenter, baptist-church-camp-attender self, that seemed like the height of blasphemy. But then why did this Psalmist get to do it?
The Psalmist here questions God. He asks why he has been abandoned. He points back and says “God you were faithful for generations, why aren’t you with me now?” But wait, isn’t that wrong to say? And, if so, why am I reading it from my Bible? Shouldn’t God have stricken this from his text--after all, it isn’t true, God doesn’t just abandon his people. So, the psalmist has to be wrong right? And, if all that is true, why in the world would Jesus quote this Psalm from the cross (Matthew 27:46) and why would other New Testament writers quote it and apply it to the Crucifixion over and over again (Matt. 27:35; Mark 15:24; John 19:24)?!
See, I think we are so often wrong about the way that God allows his children to talk to him. We think that if we are honest with God when we feel abandoned by him, or are confused about why he isn’t acting, that he will smite us as a blasphemer, or disown us as his child. But, I think the Bible teaches us something different. I think that the Bible teaches us that being a follower of Jesus, a son of the Most High, does not mean that we never come to him upset or with questions. I think that it teaches us that we put ourselves and our complaints into submission to him, and I think that you have to look no further than the life of Jesus and the Apostle Paul to see how we do that.
Hebrews tells us that in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus prayed “with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence.” And, if you look at the Gospel accounts of this moment, it isn’t a pretty one. The picture isn’t of Jesus composed and politely asking for God to act--it is a desperate cry for salvation from the only Son of God to his Father. We see the same thing from Paul in 2 Corinthians. He talks about pleading with the Lord, not once or twice but three times, for a thorn to be removed from his flesh. I don’t think this image is a pretty one either--and I don’t think that Paul uses the term “pleaded” lightly. So, if Jesus can pray like that, and Paul can pray like that, and the Psalmist can pray like that, why can’t we?
I think we can but we need to see that for Paul, and Jesus, and the Psalmist, it doesn’t end with a complaint, but moves forward to a submission of their own desires, and faith in a Lord who is good to his people and worthy of praise. Paul and Jesus say they would rather see the will of the Lord done and his glory magnified than receive an end to the suffering that they were experiencing. They didn’t hide their pain or suffering from God, they made it known and asked for him to act. But, even when the answer was no, or even a promise of continued pain, they submitted to the will of a holy God and made much of his name in the midst of their lament.
Where are you refusing to take your pain and sorrow to God?
Where are you refusing to make much of God because of the pain and sorrow that you are experiencing?
