Salvation songs - Good Friday - Psalm 22 (esv) - Pastor Tim Kroeker

Isaiah 53:3:

“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”

The celebratory shouts of deliverance just days earlier had turned into derision. His body, beaten and bloodied by Roman executioners, now hung upon a cross between two common thieves as onlookers hurled insults. In unfathomable agony Jesus cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

It’s understandable why Judas the betrayer should be gone. He’d always been more interested in the money anyways. It might make sense why Peter the denier should be gone. He’d withered under the gaze of the gathering crowd. “But you my God, my most faithful friend, why have YOU forsaken me?”

These words that Jesus uttered on the cross that day were taken from Psalm 22, a psalm of David who in the midst of his own pain and suffering felt all alone, abandoned even by God.

This year during Holy Week we’re briefly stepping away from our series in Acts to examine three Psalms full of Messianic meaning. These ancient songs help us as Christians express the full range of human emotion surrounding the central events of our faith, the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s appropriate for Christians to be moved to tears when remembering that Jesus has so entered the human condition that he suffered in his humanity, being rejected by God and people.

This song of lament does end in hope, helping us process the problem of our own pain. Both David and his descendant, the Christ, who is the ultimate fulfillment of Psalm 22, put their trust in God. When you feel abandoned and alone, where is God? He is still near. He transforms pain into praise.

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