Psalm 22: “Praying Scripture”

October 26, 2008

 

One of our primary goals in our Monday night class on Prayer is learning to “pray Scripture.”  Since we believe our Bibles contain the “living Word of God,” we believe that His Words speak to us as we read His Scripture.  So then, as we do our daily devotions, instead of first reading the Scriptures, setting them aside, and then praying, we make it our goal to read a few verses of Scripture and then “pray them back to God” asking Him to accomplish in our lives what we have just read. We are encouraged to journal our prayers to help us clarify our thoughts and to have our prayers available to us for a later date so we might evaluate how God is answering our prayers. Then after we have both talked to and listened to God from His Word, we go back into Scripture and continue the process.

 

There are other benefits to “praying Scripture” besides making prayer a two-way conversation in which we literally hear God speak to us through His written Word.  It also enlivens our devotional time as we share it with God. Scripture is also teaching us how to pray and apply God’s Word to our lives.  This process puts God in charge of preparing us for the coming challenges of each day instead of our finding ourselves hopelessly digging through Scripture searching for answers that never seem to come. 

 

We also practice “praying Scripture” because Jesus is our example. Matthew 27:45 says, “From the sixth hour until the ninth hour darkness came over all the land.”  This darkness signified God’s inability to look on or communicate with Jesus when “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Even though God could not Himself speak to Jesus while He hung on the cross, Jesus had learned that God’s written and living Word could supply the strength Jesus needed to endure the wrath of God on our behalf. By comparing the words Jesus spoke and the events surrounding His crucifixion to the prophetic words David wrote over 1,000 years earlier, we know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ meditated on Psalm 22 during His darkest hour on earth. Please follow along with me this morning as we see how this works. If we can learn this secret, we too can learn to overcome our greatest temptations and fears through “praying Scripture”.

 

Immediately upon the onset of this three hour period of darkness, “Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46). These words are the harshest and most poignant Jesus uttered as He immediately responds in prayer to the absence of God’s presence. They are also the beginning words of Psalm 22. 

 

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
       Why are you so far from saving me,
       so far from the words of my groaning?

 2 O my God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
       by night, and am not silent.

 

These three questions express Jesus’ emptiness as He was without the Triune presence of His Father for the first time. The next words of Psalm 22 show us that Jesus, cutoff from His Father’s voice and guidance, countered His loneliness by remembering the unchanging character of God.

 

 3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
       you are the praise of Israel.

 4 In you our fathers put their trust;
       they trusted and you delivered them.

 5 They cried to you and were saved;
       in you they trusted and were not disappointed.

 

Our Bibles are full of these same stories. It tells us how God worked in the lives of Abraham, Moses, David, Daniel, and all of the rest of our Hebrews 11 heroes and rewarded their faith by answering their prayers and delivering them.  Our Bibles and the Bible Jesus had say God has never disappointed or failed anyone who has trusted Him and allowed Him to resolve their conflicts, so Jesus held firm to His belief that God would not disappoint His faith.  Still even for Jesus, as we know oh so well, there seems to be a gap between knowing that God rescued these men of great faith at some point and believing that He will respond to our current prayers. This Psalm guides Jesus as it ebbs and flows; Jesus’ rejection by God is followed by His rejection by those He came to save. The taunts of men and the pangs of rejection are so real. He expresses this hurt.

 

 6 But I am a worm and not a man,
       scorned by men and despised by the people.

 7 All who see me mock me;
       they hurl insults, shaking their heads:

 8 "He trusts in the LORD;
       let the LORD rescue him.
       Let him deliver him,
       since he delights in him."

 

Compare these words to Matthew 27:39-44 where we read: “Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" In the same way the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders mocked him. "He saved others," they said, "but he can't save himself! He's the King of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him. He trusts in God. Let God rescue him now if he wants him, for he said, 'I am the Son of God.'" In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him.

 

At some point in our walk of faith we do learn that God is on trial and not us when we are persecuted for righteousness sake. Still, no matter how hard we try to rise above the words of men, their mocking of our faith will create discord between us and the Father if we allow it full reign.  That is why just as soon as these thoughts enter the mind of Jesus, He remembers not only what God has done for the fathers of the Christian faith but also what God has done for Him personally. Again, He is teaching us.

 

 9 Yet you brought me out of the womb;
       you made me trust in you
       even at my mother's breast.

 10 From birth I was cast upon you;
       from my mother's womb you have been my God.

 11 Do not be far from me,
       for trouble is near
       and there is no one to help.

 

Jesus recalled that God has been there for Him from the beginning.  There was never a day when God did not watch over Him and care for Him.  God was there from the moment Jesus was birthed from Mary’s womb and has been there throughout His life.  Even though He cannot feel the presence of God in the darkness of the cross, Jesus knows God is not far from Him and there is no one else who can help.  Scripture brought this to Jesus’ mind and aided Him through the most bitter of rejections—the rejection by His Father as Jesus became sin for us—and now again brings Jesus through the next most bitter of rejections—the rejection by the nation of Israel, the people for whom He came.  It is impossible to say that without the power and truth of these Words Jesus would not have been able to endure the pains rejection brought Him as a man because it is impossible to prove a negative. But if Jesus turned to Scripture to hear God when He needed His Father most, shouldn’t we do the same? After conquering the pain of His rejection by His Father and the rejection of the nation of Israel, the intense physical pain remained.

 

 12 Many bulls surround me;
       strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.

 13 Roaring lions tearing their prey
       open their mouths wide against me.

 14 I am poured out like water,
       and all my bones are out of joint.
       My heart has turned to wax;
       it has melted away within me.

 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
       and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
       you lay me in the dust of death.

 16 Dogs have surrounded me;
       a band of evil men has encircled me,
       they have pierced my hands and my feet.

 17 I can count all my bones;
       people stare and gloat over me.

 18 They divide my garments among them
       and cast lots for my clothing.

 

“The trouble Jesus encountered on the cross is given in the imagery of being surrounded by a pack of wild, ravenous animals.  The picture is one of base brutality.  Note the metaphors used in comparing these people to beasts: strong bulls (v12); roaring lions (v13); dogs (vv16, 20), and wild oxen (v21).  When people reject God, they act like animals.  The crowd was like a bloodthirsty pack of beasts”  (Holman Old Testament Commentary: Psalms 1-75; Steven J. Lawson, Holman Reference, 2003, p.117).

 

“In some brutal way, they piece his hands and feet; they stare and gloat over him (v17); they even strip him of his clothes and share them (v18)” (Favorite Psalms, John R.W. Stott, Baker Books, 1988,  p.29).  

 

The physical pain Jesus suffered on the cross was real.  What is amazing about Psalm 22 is that when it was written, crucifixion had not yet been invented this psalm was written over 1,000 years before Christ walked the earth.  Many rationalizations come to our minds. We tell ourselves that God treated Jesus differently, that there aren’t these kinds of verses in Scripture for us as we walk this earth.  But we need to remember Hebrews 4:15 says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet was without sin.” To deal with His physical pain, Jesus returns to Psalm 22:

 

 19 But you, O LORD, be not far off;
       O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

 20 Deliver my life from the sword,
       my precious life from the power of the dogs.

 21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions;
       save me from the horns of the wild oxen.

 

James Montgomery Boice says we should read Psalm 22:21 as “Rescue me from the mouth of the lions, from the horns of the wild oxen.  You have heard me!” He goes on to say, “This is the cry of triumph, not despair. It marks the moment at which the period of darkness passes and Jesus, having suffered a true alienation from the Father as punishment for our sins, becomes aware of God’s presence and favor once again”  (An Expositional Commentary on Psalms: Vol. 1, Psalms 1-41; Baker Books, 1996, p. 196).

 

For three hours Jesus was alone, separated from His Father and abandoned by His apostles. During this time He has found His strength to endure in Psalm 22 and His previous experiences of His Father’s love.  As the darkness lifted, Jesus announced His victory and the implications of His victory.

 

 22 I will declare your name to my brothers;
       in the congregation I will praise you.

 23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
       All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!
       Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!

 24 For he has not despised or disdained
       the suffering of the afflicted one;
       he has not hidden his face from him
       but has listened to his cry for help.

 25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
       before those who fear you will I fulfill my vows.

 26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;
       they who seek the LORD will praise him—
       may your hearts live forever!

 27 All the ends of the earth
       will remember and turn to the LORD,
       and all the families of the nations
       will bow down before him,

 28 for dominion belongs to the LORD
       and he rules over the nations.

 29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
       all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
       those who cannot keep themselves alive.

 30 Posterity will serve him;
       future generations will be told about the Lord.

 31 They will proclaim his righteousness
       to a people yet unborn—
       for he has done it.

 

The author of Hebrews, reflecting on this Psalm and the work of Jesus in securing our salvation, said, “In bringing many sons to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering…He says,
   "I will declare your name to my brothers;
      in the presence of the congregation I will sing your praises." And again,
   "I will put my trust in him." And again he says,
   "Here am I, and the children God has given me." (Hebrews 2:10-13).

 

What does Psalm 22 say Jesus accomplished on the cross?  First, that Jesus successfully endured the greatest temptation any man ever did or ever will experience.  Second, Jesus’ faith allowed God to bring His great salvation to the nation of Israel (v23) even though they would for the most part reject His offer right up through today; to people of all nations (v27); and ultimately to every person of every time and place (v31). Or, as Romans 10:11-13 puts it, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame."[What Jesus learned on the cross and from praying through Scripture]…for, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."

 

Psalm 22:31 ends with Jesus’ final words from the cross. Compare: “When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:28-30) with “for he has done it!”

 

In a world desperately in need of hearing Jesus speak to them in their darkest hours, we need to show them God has already spoken and is stilling speaking to them today. What we need to overcome all of the struggles of sin in our lives and to learn to hear God’s voice is to read the Words He has left for us.  They were powerful enough to sustain Jesus when He was separated from the presence of Almighty God. We now also have the Holy Spirit now indwelling us making the Words God has made available to guide us become alive in hearts when we need them. Regularly practicing “praying the Scriptures” will give us the strength and wisdom we need to overcome every temptation.  If it worked for Jesus in His darkest hour, won’t it work for us in our everyday existence?  I believe it will! Can we all?