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So why don't Katie and I read that to you now. So Psalm 22 starting from verse 1.
For the director of music to the tune of the Doe of the Morning, a Psalm of David.
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? So far
from my cries of anguish. My God, I cry out by day but you do not answer. By night
but I find no rest. Yet you were enthroned as the Holy One. You are the one
Israel praises. In you our ancestors put their trust. They trusted and you
delivered them. To you they cried out and were saved. In you they trusted and were
not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man scorned by everyone, despised by
the people. All who see me mock me. They hurl insults shaking their heads. He
trusts in the Lord they say. Let the Lord rescue him. Let him deliver him since he
delights in him. Yet you brought me out of the womb. You made me trust in you
even at my mother's breast. From birth I was cast on you. From my mother's womb
you have been my God. Do not be far from me for trouble is near and there is no
one to help. Many bulls surround me. Strong bulls of Bashan encircle me.
Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. I am poured
out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax. It
has melted within me. My mouth is dried up like a pot's herd and my tongue sticks
to the roof of my mouth. You lay me in the dust of death. Dogs surround me. A
pack of villains encircles me. They pierce my hands and my feet. All my bones are on
display. People stare and gloat over me. They divide my clothes among them and
cast lots for my garments. But you Lord do not be far from me. You are my
strength. Come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword. My precious life from
the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions. Save me from the
horns of the wild oxen. I will declare your name to my people. In the assembly I
will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you descendants of Jacob
honor him. Revere him all you descendants of Israel. For he has not despised or
scorned the suffering of the afflicted one. He has not hidden his face from him
but has listened to his cry for help. From you comes the theme of my praise in
the great assembly. Before those who fear you I will fulfill my vows. The poor will
eat and be satisfied. Those who seek the Lord will praise him. May your hearts live
forever. All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord and all
the families of the nations will bow down before him. For dominion belongs to
the Lord and he rules over the nations. All the rich of the earth will feast and
worship. All who go down to the dust will kneel before him. Those who cannot keep
themselves alive. Posterity will serve him. Future generations will be told
about the Lord. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people
yet unborn he has done it. Hi everyone my name is Ralph I'm one of the pastors here
at City Church and it's great to be bringing you this new series. Starting to
look at the cross as we anticipate Easter Sunday in just two weeks time. Now let us
pray before we turn to look at the passages. Father God thank you so much for
the gift of the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that he is our salvation. I pray you'd
be with us now as we dwell on this passage of Psalm 22. Lord would you open
our hearts to receive your word for us today. Amen. Well this is a new very very
short just a two-week series that we have in the run-up to Easter and it's
titled perspectives on the cross. And what the series is seeking to do is it's
seeking to look at the cross through the lens of a number of Old Testament
passages. In total 13 Old Testament passages are quoted or alluded to in the
gospel accounts of the cross and resurrection. Now of those 13, 8 come
from the book of Psalms and 5, that's 5 out of 13 come from this Psalm that we're
looking at today Psalm 22. So turn back to Psalm 22 with me. Psalm 22 given that
it's quoted five times in the accounts of the cross we know that it is an
important lens through which we are to behold the full horror but also the full
glory of the cross. And the opening verse of Psalm 22 it really sets out the the
heart of the Psalm. Look at that with me verse 1 of Psalm 22. My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me? You see this whole Psalm it is about forsakenness, about
abandonment, about being cast into the darkest depths of loneliness. It's fair
to say I think that we are experiencing a pandemic of loneliness right now. Some
research was carried out on university campuses back in 2018 and it found that
21% of university students, remember university is the time we're supposed to
be living it up socially, but 21% of university students in 2018 reported
being lonely most or all of the time. That figure rose to 26% in 2019 and of
course remember all of this was pre-COVID. According to a Mental Health
Foundation survey, loneliness amongst 19 to 24 year olds reached a dizzying 43.9%
in 2020 at the start of the pandemic. But what is loneliness? Well here's a
definition that the government uses. Loneliness is a subjective unwelcome
feeling of lack or loss of companionship. It happens when we have a mismatch
between the quantity and quality of social relationships that we have and
those that we want. Notice here that loneliness is not the same thing as
being alone. Some people are alone but they are not lonely. That's me at 6.30 in
the morning when I have my quiet time. We're real quiet. I'm alone but I'm not
lonely. But there are other people who are surrounded by people all day long so
they're not alone but they find themselves to be lonely. It's about a
lack or a loss of companionship. It's about how we feel about the the quantity
and the quality of our relationships. And it is a pandemic, the pandemic of
loneliness, that is impacting the whole world but is particularly impacting
large urban cities like Manchester. My guess is that all of us here this
afternoon, all of us have experienced loneliness in some way in the past month.
No, I certainly have. And what I want to see is that that loneliness, it has
profoundly biblical origins. What do I mean? Well let's go back right to the
very beginning of the Bible, Genesis chapter 1. Genesis chapter 1 teaches us
that we were made for relationship. So God created human beings in his image
for relationship with him. That's the reason we were made. Not because God
needed us but because God wanted us. He desired us. We were made to be
relational beings, made to be in relationship with God and in
relationship with one another. But just go forwards two chapters to Genesis
chapter 3 and we find out there how it all got messed up. We human beings, we
decided to live our lives our way. The Bible calls that sin and it led to the
ultimate relationship breakdown. We were separated, we were cut off from God. More
than that, ever since Genesis chapter 3, we human beings, we've been raging
against God and it has led to a fragmentation of all of our other
relationships. It's why marriages break down. It's why families disintegrate. It's
why nations war against nations. It is why loneliness exists. We were designed
for relationship, we were designed for companionship but like a gigantic pane
of glass dropped off the top of the Beatham Tower, those relationships have
been shattered into a million pieces because of sin in the world. Which brings
us to our psalm, Psalm 22. Just flip back to Psalm 22 with me and I've got three
points for us today. Firstly, the loneliness of David. Secondly, the
loneliness of Christ and then thirdly, the great assembly of joy. So first up
the loneliness of David. The heading tells us that this is a psalm of King
David and the title, The Doe of the Morning, it gives us a hint as to the
content of the psalm. I mean the break of dawn, that is prime hunting time isn't
it? That is the time when predators go out to try and find their prey and King
David as he writes his psalm, he feels like a piece of prey out at the break
of dawn, fearful about what predators lie around. This psalm, it is a far cry from
the confident hope of the previous psalm, Psalm 21. In Psalm 21 verse 7, David
cries out, he who trusts in the Lord will not be shaken. That's the cry of Psalm 21,
yes if I trust in the Lord I will not be shaken. But we get to Psalm 22 and
everything changes. David certainly seems to be shaken, shaken to his core.
The psalm is split into two halves. The first half from verses 1 to 21, it has
three movements. The first movement is there in verses 1 to 5 and it
describes David's perceived sense of abandonment. Abandonment by God, it's the
famous, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? You see David cries out, he
pleads with God but there is no answer, just deafening silence. Many of us know
what that feels like don't we? We know what it is to cry out to God but receive
no response. In our grief, our anguish, our sadness, in the dark night of our souls
it sometimes feels like God is entirely absent. Of course he isn't, but it often
feels that way doesn't it? A few summers back we went on holidays of family to
Grindelwald in Switzerland. It's a beautiful place located in a huge valley
and on the opposite side of the valley to the chalet we were staying in was the
huge Eiger mountain. It's colossal, it just towers above the valley but when we
arrived, we arrived at night time, it was dark and we looked out of the windows of
the chalet at the Eiger and all we saw was inky darkness. The mountain was still
there, the Eiger was still there, we saw it in the morning but in the darkness we
couldn't see it at all and it might not as well not have been there from our
perspective. And sometimes it can feel that way with God too. In the darkness of
our circumstances, in our depression, our loneliness, our sense of personal failure,
it can feel like God is just not there, that we're abandoned. In the second
movement verses 6 to 11 David moves on to describe his experience of being
mercilessly mocked. Mercilessly mocked. It leaves him verse 6 feeling like a
worm, not a man. He feels like an invertebrate, he's hated, insults are hurled
at him, verse 7. It sounds visceral going to his very innermost being and the worst
thing about it is that the people are mocking him, they are going for the place
where it hurts most. They're going for his relationship with God. Where's your
God now David? If God was really there, if he was really for you, do you really
think he would let this happen to you? Whoever said sticks and stones may break
my bones but words would never help hurt me. They've never experienced being
bullied have they? Words really do hurt and words often leave us feeling
completely alone, especially when it feels like God doesn't come to our
defense. Perhaps you know what that feels like.
Well thirdly David describes physical threat. The only image that David thinks
can do it justice is the image of animals. So he talks about gigantic balls
of Bashan, verse 12, weighing 12 times the weight of a human being. They surround
him, they snort and they flick up dust from under them. He then describes his
opponents as being like hungry lions waiting to devour him as their prey.
David melts away in fear. He's humiliated, devastated, ashamed and utterly alone.
We know something of that don't we? Some of us here today we have faced literal
bullies who have threatened to do us physical harm. We know how utterly lonely
we feel when faced by bullies. We know how even our friends and family can
start to feel distant because that bullying puts a barrier between us and
them. Others of us here today we've experienced physical threat not from
other people but from our circumstances. From our bank account balances that are
hurtling into the wreck. From the eviction notice that came through our
letterbox. Through the persecution and mockery and marginalization we face at
work. And when we experience that we feel all alone. Well what are we to learn from
David's experiences here in Psalm 22? I think what this Psalm does is it shows
us how we should respond when affliction strikes. You see some of us when trouble
hits our way of dealing with it is just to blurt it all out. To tell anyone who
will listen what is happening to us. To fall into grumbling and feeling really
down and self-pitying lamenting what we're going through. Then there are
others of us who want to process it all internally and and we just bottle it all
up. Getting more and more stressed more and more anxious and afraid like a
pressure cooker just building up pressure and pressure and pressure. Well I
think what David teaches us that we need to do in Psalm 22 is not just blurt it
out to anyone. Not just keep it on the inside but we need to share it with God.
We need to process it with him. Did you notice that? And in each of the cycles
David goes to God with what he's going through. When he feels abandoned by God
he remembers verses 3 to 5 how God had delivered his ancestors in the past. When
David is mercilessly mocked he remembers his present experience of God's
continual care for him. That's verses 9 to 11. And then when David feels
physically threatened from the outside he remembers that God will protect and
save him in the future. That's verses 19 to 21. Do you see? This is what we must do.
Even when we feel utterly alone just as David did we must go to God with our
loneliness. We must anchor ourselves in his promises what he has said he will do.
We will trust in God. We must trust in God that he's looked after us this far
and we must trust his promise that he will look after us in the days to come.
Even though we cannot see him even though he's like a mountain in the pitch
darkness of our experiences we must trust in him. But there is a problem here
isn't there? As we work through the Psalm did you spot the problem? Just look
through verses 1 to 21 again see if you notice it. You see these are King David's
words aren't they? But they can't be King David's words. Why? Well David got himself
into a number of scrapes. Many of us know the story of David fighting the giant
Goliath and David was in King Saul's court and King Saul tried to skewer him
with a spear. David knew what it was like to get himself in trouble. David knew
what it was like for King Saul to call the entire Israelite army to track him
down to kill him. David knew what it was like to be spat at and mocked by Shimei.
But the events of verses 16 to 18 never happened to David because they describe
a judicial execution. They describe David being encircled, his hands and his feet
being pierced, his clothing being divided up through the casting of lots. That only
happens at one event, at an execution. Because it is only at the point of
execution that a person no longer has any need for clothes anymore when they
bear the ultimate humiliation of the cross. And that never happened to David.
In fact it could never have happened to David. You see back in those days Kings
weren't judged and then executed after they committed war crimes. There was no
international criminal court in the Hague back in 1000 BC. Now when Kings
were defeated back then they were just simply killed in battle. No trial, no
judge, no jury, just death. Which means that Psalm 22 cannot be describing
David's experiences. It must be describing someone else. Which brings us
to our second point today, the loneliness of Christ. Peter in his sermon in
Pentecost recorded in Acts chapter 2, he says that David was a prophet who spoke
about what his great descendant would one day do. Now Peter was saying that
about Psalm 16 but he could have been saying exactly the same thing about Psalm
22. You see as one preacher has put it, Psalm 22 is a pre-prepared execution
statement written a thousand years before the execution. That's what it is.
That's what we saw in our reading from Matthew chapter 27 that Isaac did.
Jesus on the cross picks up Psalm 22 and he reads it as his own execution
statement. Verse 1, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And the events that
Psalm 22 described, they map precisely onto Jesus own experiences on the cross.
So as the governor's soldiers dress him in Matthew 27, as they make him look like
a king and then as they thrust the thorny crown onto his head, shredding his
scalp, they mock and insult him as verse 7, Psalm 22 says. As they strike him, as
they stand around him, striking him again and again on the head, they surround him
like a herd of raging bulls. Verse 12. And then in verse 43 of Matthew chapter 27,
the baying crowd, they repeat almost word for word the very taunt recorded in
Psalm 22 verse 8. They say he trusts in God, let God rescue him now if he wants
him. And then as the nails are driven through his hands and feet, it happens
just as Psalm 22 verse 16 said. He is left exposed naked with all his bones on
display. Verse 17 of Psalm 22. And then Matthew chapter 27 verse 35 tells us
that the soldiers cast lots for his clothing. Just as Psalm 22 verse 18 said
they would. So what do we learn from this? Two things I think. Firstly, God in the
person of his son Jesus Christ knows exactly what it's like to be human,
living in this broken sin-fractured world. He knows what it is to be abandoned, to
be mocked, to be beaten, to be utterly alone. Writing just after the end of the
first World War with all of his unspeakable horror, Edward Shilito penned
a famous poem. He called it Jesus of the Scarves. And the final verse goes like
this. The other gods were strong but thou was weak. They rode but thou
distumbled to a throne. But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak. And not a
God has wounds but thou alone. Not a God has wounds but thou alone. Do you see? The
God of the Bible, Jesus, he is the only God who knows what it's like to be human.
Who knows what it's like to be you. Allah doesn't know that. Nor does Vishnu. Nor do
the forces of Mother Nature. Nor do the invisible powers of natural selection.
Only God in Jesus Christ knows what it's like to be you. To our wounds only God's
wounds speak. But in Jesus, God has not only experienced our pain and loneliness.
Secondly, he has also dealt with our pain and loneliness. You see, as Jesus uttered
those famous words, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? He was not just
associating with humanity. He was substituting for humanity. What do I mean?
Well it takes us back again to Genesis chapters 1 to 3. Remember what we saw
there? We were created for relationship with God but our sin, our rebellion
against God, it shattered that relationship. It meant that we were forsaken by God.
But here's what happened in Matthew chapter 27. Here is what was prophesied
in Psalm 22. God the Son, who has forever been in perfect harmonious joyful
relationship with God the Father and God the Holy Spirit, he was cut off. He was
forsaken. I can't imagine what the physical pain of the cross was like. It
must have been incredible. But Jesus didn't cry out because of the physical
pain. I can't imagine what the emotional pain of the cross would have been like
for him to have been deserted by all of his friends, by all of those who loved
him most, so he thought. I can't imagine how painful that would have been for him.
But that didn't make Jesus scream. No, it was this moment that made him cry out.
Three o'clock in the afternoon, one Friday in the first century, when God
literally turned his back on Jesus as he punished him. Jesus was more alone on the
cross than anyone has ever been alone. And he did it for us, as our substitute in
our place. I wonder whether you've managed to see the the Netflix documentary,
The Trapped 13. Give me a nod if you've seen that yet. No one. Maybe one person
has seen it. It's brilliant. I recommend you watch it. It tells the story of the
13 schoolboys aged 11 to 16 who got trapped in a cave in Thailand in 2018.
And the rescue plan that they came up with was astonishing. It involved 18
divers. It was a perilous dive. It was two and a half miles long and half a
mile down into the depths of the mountain. What made it worse was that as
they went through the caves, there were incredibly strong currents pulling them
in all different directions. It was also an extremely narrow passage. At one point
the passage was just 38 centimeters by 72 centimeters. The divers were taking
incredible risks as they went in to rescue the boys. And just a few days
before the final rescue attempt, one of the divers lost his life. When it came to
the actual rescue, it was decided that the dive was too perilous and that the
boys, if they were made to do the dive, they would panic. And that panic would
put both their own lives and the life of their rescuer at risk. And so the
decision was taken to anesphatize the 18 boys. So they were put to sleep by
a doctor who was one of the divers. And then once they were asleep, once they
were knocked out, the divers lined up throughout the tunnel and passed the
boys one to another. And they put themselves in the place where all the
sharp rocks were so the boys would just go through seamlessly. The boys felt
nothing and the divers did it all. Well that's what happened on the cross. Jesus
on the cross, he took the punishment. He took the forsakenness, the abandonment in
our place and we felt nothing at all. That's what Psalm 22 is ultimately about.
He experienced our estrangement from God. Two things this teaches us. Firstly, it
teaches us that our sin is far, far, far worse than we dared imagine. It required
this of him. If it required something so extreme, then sin isn't merely a matter
of a few slip-ups, a few mistakes, getting a few things wrong. No sin. Sin is
nothing less than high treason against the God who made us. That is why Jesus
had to go through this. But here's the second thing it teaches us. The fact that
Jesus stayed on the cross, that he endured this for you, for me, it must mean that
he loves us. He loves us far more than we possibly dare imagine. So have you
received that love, that forgiveness, that grace that embraces you? Have you turned
from your relational rebellion against God and put your trust in him? He
experienced the relational rupture of hell, what all of our loneliness and
discomfort merely points to, and he did that so that we don't have to. More than
that, so that we can experience joy unimaginable in the Great Assembly. Which
brings us to our final point today. Look at verses 22 to 31 of Psalm 22. Verse 22
is a major turning point and there's an incredible movement here from the
language of verse one to the incredible joy of verse 22. From thirst in verse 15
to complete satisfaction in verse 26. From one person all alone in verse one
to a great assembly in verse 22, stretching backwards and forwards
throughout verse 30 all generations and verse 27 all nations. It's incredible. It's
joy unimaginable. Satisfaction beyond our wildest dreams for all peoples in all
places at all times. But it's only possible because Jesus first cried out
in pain and abandonment. Do you know what Jesus's last words were before he died?
It is finished. But Jesus could only breathe out those last words because
first he said, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Our song of praise, the song of
praise that you're gonna be invited to sing if you're trusting in Jesus, is only
possible because Jesus first sung out a song of abandonment. Psalm 22 on the
cross. Listen to this. It's from the book of Hebrews and it's describing the
completion of Jesus's work through his death and resurrection. Hebrews chapter
2 verse 11 and 12 says this, so Jesus is not ashamed to call them, that is
Christians, brothers and sisters. He says, I will declare your name to my brothers
and sisters in the assembly. I will sing your praises. He's quoting from verse 22
of Psalm 22. Do you see the point? All the greatest stories that have ever been
told are about a hero who suffers in orders that others can rejoice. From
gladiator to Harry Potter, from the Avengers Endgame to Lord of the Rings,
they all have the same story because they are all derived from this ultimate
true story. Jesus went through the agony, the punishment, the wounds and
forsakenness of verses 1 to 21 so that he could invite us into the glorious
praise of verses 22 to 31. So that he could invite us to join him in the
uninhibited joy and flourishing beauty and satisfaction, wholeness and oneness
of his resurrection glory. Before we close, just two implications I want to
draw out for us. Firstly, this means that Jesus gets you. I know that some of us
are going through a really hard time right now. It's really painful. We're
struggling in ways we never imagined that we would struggle in. Experiencing
dark nights of the soul, feeling utterly lonely, like no one can understand us,
like there is no way out. But know this, there is nothing we can experience,
nothing we can suffer, no ordeal we can go through, which is beyond the
comprehension of Jesus. The God we cry out to is not distant. Sometimes it can
feel like that in our experience, can't it? It can feel that way with our
politicians. How does someone who earns a million pounds a year understand what
it's like to struggle with the cost of living crisis? But Jesus is not like that.
Jesus gets us. You feel completely alone, let down by those closest to you. You
feel hurt, humiliated, abandoned, ashamed. Jesus gets you at the most profound
level. He understands, always. And secondly, Psalm 22 tells you that Jesus will keep
you. He will keep you. This life is hard, it is. Verses 1 to 21 feel so
terribly close to our experience sometimes, don't they? But Jesus is one we
can put our trust in. Verse 4. He is one who will carry us from cradle to grave.
Verse 9. And he is our strength. Verse 19. You see, Jesus both showed us the way,
suffering now, glory later. But he also made the way for us through his ultimate
moment of weakness on the cross. That one event when he cried out, my God, my God,
it is guaranteed that this feeling of loneliness that we experience today, we
all experience it to some extent, that cry on the cross has guaranteed that one
day soon it will feel like a distant memory, like a penny thrown into an
infinite ocean of never-ending, all-embracing relational joy and
satisfaction. That is the hope of Psalm 22 and that is the cast-iron guarantee
that has been signed with the cry, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Let me
pray for us. Lord Jesus, thank you that you cried out your cry of abandonment in
Psalm 22, so that we need never truly feel that. Thank you that you promise
that you are with us, that you will never leave nor forsake us. Thank you that in
you we have full relational satisfaction. Help us to taste that even now. Help us
to come to you, to lay our burdens before you, trusting that you are good,
trusting that you understand, trusting that you have made a way for us. And
knowing that this life is just fleeting and the joy and relational fulfillment
to come will far support anything we experience in this time. Amen.