Where Pain and Belief Live

Psalm 22:1-18

November 19, 2023 • Mount Pleasant UMC

It was dark, darker than they remembered it being, especially in the early afternoon. It was certainly unnatural, but that was okay because the darkness matched their mood. Their teacher, Jesus of Nazareth, was hanging on a Roman cross, put there by their own religious leaders. Crucifixions were spectator sports in those days, so there was a large crowd gathered around the three crosses, a crowd which contained just a few followers of Jesus. They were probably mostly silent as they heard people in the crowd mocking him, watched as a title was put over his head saying “King of the Jews” and found themselves frustrated as the Roman soldiers gambled to see who would get Jesus’ clothing. Then the darkness came and everything had gotten quiet. A stillness had settled over the whole scene, broken only by the occasional groans from one or more of the men on the crosses beside Jesus. But Jesus himself was strangely silent—until that moment when he gathered his strength, pushed up on the nails in his feet, and cried out a sentence, a verse from the psalms. “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” The Roman soldiers who sat and stood nearby didn’t speak Aramaic, and they probably hadn’t read the Hebrew scriptures, but they had heard that there was this prophet named Elijah who, the Jews said, had never died. So they mockingly say, probably with laughter, “He’s calling Elijah!” But the Jews knew right away what he was saying. They knew he wasn’t talking about Elijah. They knew he was quoting a psalm. And they knew why because they knew what he was saying: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (cf. Matthew 27:32-47).

This morning, as we continue to look at the practice of lament in our prayer lives, we come to one of the most famous laments in history, made so because Jesus was praying it from the cross. Verse 1 of Psalm 22 is one of the “seven last words of Christ.” And while this is the verse that is recorded in the Gospels, I would suggest that Jesus is probably praying through the whole psalm (cf. Pixner, With Jesus in Jerusalem), lamenting as he hangs on the cross. He would have been very familiar with the practice of lament from the synagogue. He would have known that when things get difficult, you have to stay in the conversation. Keep praying. And he would have known that it is okay to complain, as long as your complaint isn’t the end of your prayer. Because after we tell God what’s wrong (often in great detail), we move on toward the third piece of lament: ask boldly.

Psalm 22 is listed as “a psalm of David,” and as I’ve told you before, that can mean either that it was written by David or written for David. We’re not quite sure. It is one of 55 psalms that was written “for the director of music,” which I take to be sort of like the worship leader. Maybe written for that person in honor of some anniversary or achievement. And beyond that, we don’t know much about the original setting of the psalm, except that, like all of the psalms, it was written out of a difficult time. It was written in the midst of a time of what we might call “innocent suffering,” a time when at least the person who is singing did not feel like they deserved what they were getting, and a time when it also felt like God was far away. No wonder this psalm was on Jesus’ mind when he was crucified!

The beginning of the psalm records “the words of a person desperate to hear from God…[in] a time when prayers seem to go unanswered and sleep is nowhere to be found despite our weariness” (Russell, The Psalms • Part I, pg. 96). The psalmist uses a strong word to describe his feeling at this moment: “forsaken.” For me, that word brings up images of a desert landscape where, no matter how far you can see, there is no one around. It’s a feeling of utter aloneness, with not much hope of anything changing. “Forsaken.” Abandoned. Alone. And I’ll remind you again that this song was preserved in the hymnbook of Israel; this is a song that would be sung in worship. Last week, after worship, Troy Bowden asked me if these psalms were written for then or now, because, as he said, they really seem to apply now. And he’s right. That’s the beauty and the power of the Word of God. These songs were preserved for Israel (and for us) to sing when we need to sing it, when we feel abandoned, forsaken (cf. Goldingay, Psalms for Everyone Part 1, pg. 70). Right from the start it gives them and us permission to acknowledge our sense of abandonment and fear without any shame. This song was for then and for now, for them and for us. And right in the middle of then and now, we find it was also for Jesus.

A lot of ink has been spilled regarding Jesus’ use of these first few words from the psalm. First let me say that it was ancient practice that saying the first line of the psalm would be the same as praying the whole psalm. In days when they didn’t have the Scriptures on their phones, they were so much better than we are at knowing the Scriptures. They had to memorize the psalms; most of them could not read even if they had secured a physical copy but most people only heard the scriptures read in synagogue worship, not at home. I know, it’s hard for us to imagine, but saying the first line of a psalm was sort of a shorthand way of praying the whole psalm because anyone who heard that first line could immediately call to mind the whole psalm. So Jesus likely prayed out loud only this one line in part because the cross made it difficult to breathe and speak, but also because he knew those listening would understand. They knew what was in the rest of the psalm.

But then there’s the question of forsakenness. How could the Son of God be forsaken by God? He is God; he’s part of the Trinity—Father, Son and Holy Spirit. For that matter, how could the original author of this psalm be forsaken if God is, indeed, everywhere in his creation? The simple answer is he’s not. Neither of them were really forsaken in that way. God is present, even if and when we feel as if he is not, and the psalm itself is proof of that. Just the fact that he is praying these words is proof that God is there. You can’t address someone who is not there. You can’t talk to someone who has abandoned you (cf. Goldingay 70). In the same way, God was there when Jesus was crucified, bearing witness and suffering deeply as his son was tortured and brutalized by the creation. As one author has put it, “It is hard to imagine the depth of the agony involved in watching your son be executed when you could stop it” (Goldingay 70). God was there, but he chose not to act, to put a stop to it because he knew the greater good that would come out of Jesus’ death. He knew the resurrection that lay beyond. In both the psalmist’s original setting and at the cross, “God’s abandonment lies not in going away but in being present and yet doing nothing” (Goldingay 70).

And that’s why the most important word in this psalm is only three letters in English. It’s at the beginning of verse 3 in our translation. “Yet.” Y-E-T. After some very pointed complaints, the psalmist turns to bold asking with the word “yet.” We see it again in verse 9; after a couple more verses of complaint, the psalmist again says, “Yet.” And here’s the bold request, the true prayer, in verse 11: “Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help” (22:11). Almost the same request is made in verse 19 as well. Do those prayers sound like they come from someone who has truly been forsaken by God? No, of course not, because why would you ask someone who had abandoned you to “be near”? What the psalmist is doing is rooting his prayer in who he knows God to be. In other words, at this point, the psalmist is moving from “why” (the complaint) to “who” (the one who can actually do something about what is wrong). “Yet” is the place where pain and belief live in tension with each other. It’s a significant turning point, and one Jesus intends people to hear as he prays from the cross (cf. Vroegop, Dark Clouds, Deep Mercy, pg. 59).

The prayers of lament in Psalm 22 ask God to act, to do something, to be near, to step in and make things right. These are the prayers of a desperate person, someone who has no time for nice words and calm requests. These are the demands of a person in pain. But the point of these prayers is not to meet a need; the point is to rely on God to do the right thing. Similar prayers show up all throughout the psalms of lament (cf. Vroegop 60-65). There are at least nine specific requests the psalmists make in these psalms of lament, and I’m going to go through them all pretty quickly so if you’re taking notes, get ready. First, seven psalms ask God to “arise” or “rise up.” This prayer is basically a desperate cry for God to “do something.” Get involved! Show up now! When we are in pain, we get desperate. I prayed a prayer like that when I got so sick after my first heart surgery. “God, show up.” We demand divine intervention, which leads to the second type of lament prayer request: “Grant us help.” This is a prayer asking for God to get us out of something. It also reminds us that God can be trusted to do what is right. Now, let me say this, if you got yourself into a pickle, you might still have to go through the consequences of whatever you did. When I was a youth pastor, I’d often have students asking for prayers for tests that were coming up. And I always prayed, “Lord, help them succeed up to the level that they have prepared.” I don’t think they always liked that prayer.

The third lament request is “Remember your covenant.” That’s not because God forgets things. He doesn’t forget promises he has made, ever. What we’re really saying in that prayer is, “I am trusting in what your word says.” It’s believing that the God who was faithful in the past will continue to be faithful in the future, even when the evidence seems to say otherwise. Fourth: “Let justice be done.” These are the psalms that boldly ask God for the defeat of and the punishment of the wicked, the abusers, the unfair and those who mistreat others. This is the prayer for righteousness to prevail in a nation or in a war between nations. Maybe you’ve prayed prayers like this in light of current conflicts in our world or even in our nation. As Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” That is God’s heart. Fifth: “Don’t remember our sins.” This sounds like a child asking a parent to forget the things they have done, but when we ask this of a God who does not and can not forget, it’s our way of asking that we not be treated as our sins deserve. It is a prayer for mercy, especially in those situations where we have caused our own suffering.

The sixth prayer: “Restore us!” This is a request for spiritual healing, something (again) God longs to do. And ultimately, this is a prayer in line with the story of Scripture, whose big story is pointing toward the restoration of all of creation to the way God intended it to be from the start. That is the promise on every page of the Bible, and especially in the book of Revelation. God will ultimately restore all things, and bring an end to all pain and brokenness. Number seven: “Don’t be silent—listen to me!” Now that sounds rather contradictory because if someone is listening to me, I expect that they are silent. But it gets at those times when we pray, when we speak, and it seems like there is no response from God. We decide he’s ignoring us, not listening to us. The reality is that he always hears us; he just may not respond in the time or in the way we think he should. So, again, this is a prayer of trust, and a determination that we will stay in the conversation with God. Number eight: “Teach me.” This may be one of the most important prayers in the laments, asking God what we can learn in the midst of the pain and struggle. One Bible teacher used to say that when we fall down, look around and see what we can pick up while we’re down there. In other words, what can we learn even as we walk through dark times? And then, number nine: “Vindicate me.” If you’ve ever been falsely accused or unjustly fired from a job or spoken badly of, you know there is within us this desire to defend ourselves, to point out how the other person or persons are wrong. This prayer of lament says, “I will trust my reputation and who I am with you, Lord, knowing that in time you will make it right.” Because God is the only one who judges justly and righteously.

When we find ourselves in the midst of pain and struggle, these are nine Biblical requests we can make even as we lament. God longs to hear our prayers, and sometimes it’s only when we end up in the place where pain and belief live that we learn how to really pray, how to pray in a way that we rely upon the character of God. He is a good, good Father who will never actually abandon us. We can count on that every bit as much as the psalmist did in his suffering and every bit as much as Jesus did on the cross.

In the midst of working on this sermon this week, I opened up my Facebook app and at the very top was news that devastated me and stuck with me all week. It was from a friend of mine, who we met while working on the west side of Chicago in a mission project with InterVarsity. We bonded that summer that was so hot in Chicago and have continued to do things together occasionally throughout the years. She and her twin sister both became general practice physicians and both gave up what could have been a very lucrative career to serve populations that are underserviced, and even though they were from Florida, they both ended up in Minnesota where it is very cold in the winter. These two sisters have always been close, and their kids have grown up together. But this week, my friend posted on Facebook that her twin had been killed in a hit and run accident. According to the news report, she was walking along the road with her dog and someone hit her head on, then drove off. As far as I know, she was killed instantly, but the rest of us are left trying to get to the “yet.” Her sister texted me, “This is what happens to other people, not us.” That comes from shock and disbelief, not a place of saying her family is beyond suffering like others. But I get it. I understand what she’s saying because right now, it boggles my mind that someone who was serving people and doing so much good, who had a faith and a love for people, died so relatively young. I know all the theological answers. I know that it’s a broken world, and I know horrible things happen. I’ve preached those things, and I believe them. But that doesn’t stop the questions and the pain. This week, in many ways, has been a lament in my own life. And I know I will likely never get an answer to the question of why the innocent suffer—not on this side of eternity anyway, and I honesty believe that on the other side, the questions won’t matter all that much anymore, not when I see the face of Jesus. So for now I lament, and I ask the questions, and I pray for my friends while waiting to get to the “yet,” the place where pain and belief live together.

[Before we move to confirmation,] I want to point out something else about Psalm 22, something that might sound a bit obvious, but stick with me. Psalm 22 is followed by Psalm 23. I know, right? This is the kind of blindingly obvious Biblical insight that you pay me for. No, seriously, Psalm 22 is followed by Psalm 23, and the psalms were not arranged haphazardly. Like any good hymnal, they are put in an intentional order, and I believe the original editors knew that after the pain of Psalm 22, we would need to be taken to the beautiful green pastures and quiet waters of Psalm 23. After pounding on heaven’s doors, we need to be comforted by the shepherd’s staff. And after the uncertainty of the day, we need the reminder at the end of Psalm 23: “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (23:6). So here’s my encouragement: when you find yourself on a Psalm 22 day, don’t give up and don’t you quit. Because before you know it, Psalm 23 will show up. It’s just around the corner. And the God who is hard to find in Psalm 22 is so very close in Psalm 23. So hold on, wait for the “yet” and know that just beyond the place where pain and belief live is the house of the Lord. That’s the good news this day and every day. Amen.