What is with Psalm 22? (Mark 15:33 - 36)

Short teachings from Hillcrest Church exploring the background, context, meaning, and significance of the account of Jesus of Nazareth in the book of Mark.

Transcript

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Hey, how are you doing? Hope you're well. And Tim here, and we are diving deep into the book of Mark for Lend. So we are coming now to the death of Jesus. And we read in Mark 15, 33, at noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon, Jesus cried out in a loud voice, Eloi Eloy Lemethabektani, which means, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And then some people thought he was calling Elijah, and they uh come, they give him some wine vinegar, and uh they say, Let's see if Elijah comes to rescue Jesus. And so uh I want to talk about what my God, this phrase, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? It's a quote from Psalm 22, and I've actually a couple of folks have emailed me questions about this, and so I thought I'd just speak for a minute about it. Um and I would encourage you uh today or tomorrow to spend time in Psalm 22 uh because it's a powerful uh meditation on the righteous sufferer and how that is fulfilled in Jesus. Um couple questions that come up about Jesus uh quote quoting Psalm 22. One person asked, how how does Psalm 22 function as as prophecy uh that is fulfilled in Jesus? Like, how does that work? How does how do psalms function as prophecy? And real uh real briefly, if you think about uh Psalms this way, I mean, clearly the Psalms aren't part of they're not a uh part of the prophetic works, but uh a number of psalms are Davidic psalms. Um they're written by David and talking about David's kingship. This is one of the Davidic Psalms, and um so any given psalm by itself uh could be this Davidic kingship psalm. Um and some of them, uh Psalm 22 isn't particularly about kingship, but some of them are quite about they're they're kind of they're they're about kingship quite clearly, and and uh in their original context, it was maybe for even David's son Solomon or later uh Judean kings. Well, what's interesting though is the entire book of Psalms together is collected after the kingship has ended. So Psalm 137, you can tell it's post-exile, and so the book of Psalms as a whole is put together after the institution of um Israelite monarchy is ended. And so what began to happen is those Davidic kingship psalms they began to get read messianically. Um they're still part of the scripture, and the people would begin to say, okay, this um we no longer this kingship psalm, it's no longer um about our living king, it must be about a future king. And so it got it got um understood as part of the messianic expectation. And so I think um something similar could be happening here, this Davidic psalm that Jesus is understood, like this was written by David in this situation as the righteous sufferer, and that it's finding its fullest meaning now as the son of David, the one truly righteous sufferer, goes through these things. And so um it's not that other Jews were reading Psalm 22 in a messianic way. Um it, you know, it was really Jesus who first connected the idea of suffering with the Messiah and pulled these. He does similar with like Isaiah 53, Jesus pulls that and understands that's part of what his role is as the Messiah. But I think it's this trajectory of these um these Davidic Psalms being understood as part of the messianic idea, that being part of how they work prophetically that Jesus is pulling on here, that he is the ultimate son of David, who is the righteous sufferer. So that's uh one of the questions that came up. It's how does Psalm 22 function prophetically? And really is again, read it and you'll see just how much it points ahead to Jesus. The other question that comes up is how much should we understand Psalm 22 um starts in despair and it ends in uh victory? I mean, the last lines is they will proclaim his righteousness, um, declaring to a people yet unborn, he has done it. It ends in victory. And so sometimes, uh, and even recently the question has come up, how much do we understand Jesus to be expressing um this God forsakenness? And how much is he pointing ahead to the victory at the end of Psalm 22? And there's there's there's actually you'll hear scholars like if you dig into this, there's scholars who say, no, he can, he's only referring to verse one and his God forsakenness. And there's other scholars, no, clearly he's he's talking about the whole psalm and he's talking about uh the victory that comes at the end of the psalm. And and I would simply say, I think probably uh the distinction um in that is is getting overblown, is what's happening there. And and probably frankly, sometimes uh people's people sometimes people have um theologies of what they understand what's happening on the cross, and then they want they want to kind of read that into their interpretation of Psalm 22. But when you when you go through um the lament psalms, that Psalm 22 is one of the lament psalms, over and over and over again, I think all but one, maybe Psalm 88, ends with this declaration of faith in God. That biblical lament is the most raw, unbridled expression of anger and dejection and loneliness and sadness in God, where are you? And questioning. And it's done that in the context of ongoing faith in Yahweh God. And maybe perhaps because Christians today in our world, because uh frankly, I think oftentimes we can be unfamiliar with this kind of lament that we feel like those are places that we can't go. Um we're not allowed to be that rawly honest and hold faith that those somehow they're against one another. Maybe that even drives that that um some scholars have trouble imagining holding these two things together. Um but over and over, you know, the biblical meant is to hold raw anguish, but undergird it with uh ongoing faith in Yahweh God and to hold those together. And so um uh I would when I see Jesus quoting Psalm 22, um, I don't think we can take any of the raw anguish away. He there there's the uh there's some way, and and and here we come to the mystery of the cross. How do you understand what the son of God is experiencing? Um I think clearly the spiritual suffering, that as as horrific as the physical suffering was, the whatever the spiritual suffering was, was uh even more horrific. And there is some way that the son of God is saying to the to the Abba Father, why why have you forsaken me? There's this experiencing of this uh God forsakenness that the son is going through on the cross, and that it is held still just like in the Garden of Gethsemane, with ongoing faith in his Abba Father. That's because that is what Psalm 20, that's what biblical lament always does. That it is not a sinful despair of of giving up, um, but it is a biblical lament of even in the utmost dejection of holding that. I mean, even Psalm 20, even the very phrase, my God, my God, it is expressing God forsakenness in the form of a prayer. It is his Abba who he's addressing. And so um I think sometimes to to distinguish, is this is it all verse one despair, is it all the end of Psalm 22 victory? I think I think that could be that can be overblown. I think Jesus, it is, it is the rawness of biblical lament that maybe it's us that is unfamiliar with that. And so we come, we come to Jesus on the cross, Psalm 22. This these um words uh uh written by David, filled up in their fullest meaning in the um in the death of Jesus, um, who uses this psalm to express the depth of his Godforsakenness on the cross. And so my encouragement here, you know, it's um it's Thursday of Holy Week. Uh, if you're able to spend some time in Psalm 22 today and let the words wash over you um as you come to understand um what the Son of God has done for the sake of the world. Grace and peace.