“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Psalm 22:1a

Psalm 22 was written by King David during a time of great personal distress when he felt abandoned by God. It is a form of prayer called a Lament, where the sufferer turns and cries out to God for help. But even though David wrote this Psalm originally about his own suffering, the early church quickly realized that everything he said in figurative language about himself was in fact a literal description of what Christ suffered 1000 years later on the cross. As it turns out, David was a prophet! And this Psalm is a prophecy about Jesus, God’s Messiah, and what he would suffer on the cross.
That prophetic connection between what David wrote in his day and what Jesus experienced 1000 years later can be seen very clearly in the following:

  • Psa 22:1 “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me.” Mat 27:46 and Mk 15:34 both tell us Jesus cried these very words from the cross.
  • Psa 22:7 “All who see me mock me….they wag their heads at me” Mat 27:39
  • Psa 22:8 “They say, ‘He trusts in the Lord, let Him deliver Him.” Mat 27:43 tells us the priests and scribes mock him using these very words.
  • Psa 22:14 “all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax” These are apt descriptions of what someone being crucified would experience.
  • Psa 22:15 “my tongue sticks to my jaws” is a graphic description of the thirst Jesus experienced while being crucified (see John 19:28)
  • Psa 22:16 “they have pierced my hands and feet.” It’s a mystery as to what David meant when he wrote this. Crucifixion had not yet been invented, yet it perfectly describes what happens to Jesus when He is nailed to the cross.
  • Psa 22:18 “they divides my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.” We’ll see the literal fulfillment of these word in John 19:24 during this morning’s message.

It is amazing to me how the Holy Spirit put into David’s mouth such a clear description of what Jesus would suffer over a millennium later. And how God in His over-ruling providence brought these exact events to complete fulfilment just as He had David write them down. Such is the sovereign wisdom of our God

There, at the foot of Christ’s Cross we see our salvation

Pastor Scott