May 23, 2025 - Psalms 21-25

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

      Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?

O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,

      and by night, but I find no rest (22:1).

David wrote those words a thousand years before the birth of Jesus.  At times, David felt as if God had abandoned him, especially as he faced down his foes but, also, in times of despair because of his sin.  These are David’s words of testimony but they also point to another:  to Jesus who, on the cross, cried out:  “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour.  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’” (Matthew 27:45-46)  On the cross, in our place, Jesus faced the full wrath of the Father, even sensing his abandonment there on the cross.  That is, Jesus suffered all that we, as sinners, would suffer apart from him.  His pain was excruciating.  His sense of abandonment was terrifying.  He suffered the full judgment that should be ours.  David also cried out, “But you, O Lord, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!” (22:19)  David, through all his troubles, knew to whom he must flee.  Similarly, Jesus himself, “calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last” (Luke 23:46).  And so it must be for us, that is, that we rest in God and entrust our lives to him always.

See, from his head, his hands, his feet,

sorrow and love flow mingled down.

Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,

or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,

that were a present far too small.

Love so amazing, so divine,

demands my soul, my life, my all.   -- Isaac Watts (1707)