14.02.07
The Psalms (11): The Triumph of Christ - Psalm 22
Is it true to say that ‘all good things must come to an end’, just like this short series on the Psalms is coming to an end tonight? Over the last couple of months we have been through the highs and the lows of the book of Psalms; we have been baffled by their sheer depth and enlightened by their utter reality; we have felt elated and we have felt depressed; we have seen our own sinfulness and we have seen the perfection of God. But tonight, I want to close by telling you that there are some good things which won’t come to an end – things which the Psalm we are going to look at tell us all about. These last type are called Messianic Psalms because they speak directly about the Lord Jesus Christ – that’s not to say that the other psalms don’t, simply that these psalms, par excellence, give us unparalleled access into the mind and heart of our Master. And what these psalms tell us won’t come to an end is the glory of the name and the triumph of Jesus Christ. His worthiness will never end and the praise of His name by His grateful people will never come to an end. In fact, there is a very real sense in which because these are good things, they will never come to an end. The splendour and majesty of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords will shine eternally – they will never dim not supposing eternity means eternity.
Tonight we are going to look at the Triumph of Christ from Psalm 22. If you were to ask most Free Church Psalm singers what they thought the message of Psalm 22 was they would straightaway say ‘the sufferings of Christ’. That’s why we very often sing this Psalm at communion time, to remind us of how much our Lord endured for our salvation. But whilst that’s true, it’s not the whole truth, because in the final analysis, the message of Psalm 22 isn’t about the cross, but about the crown. The final destination of the Messiah isn’t a throne of wood, but the throne of gold – it’s not a story of defeat, but a story of victory. And so tonight, what I want to do is to begin by looking at what this Psalm tells us about the cross Jesus bore, and then secondly to see what it tells us about the crown Jesus wears:
[A] The Cross (vs. 1-21)
There has never been, nor will there ever be, any piece of human literature which goes even remotely close to telling us how Jesus felt than Psalm 22. You ask, “I wonder how Jesus felt when He was hanging on the cross”, well, in Psalm 22 here’s your answer – here is Christ bearing His heart and His mind to us as He suffered in agony for my sins and yours. We see distinct movements or themes in these verses:
1. Confusion (vs. 1-2) – surely, the words of vs. 1 are some of the best known words of Jesus “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” In these verses we hear the groans and cries of the Lord Jesus Christ, we gain inner access to the confusion and perplexity of the cross. This Son of God, who knew His God as Father cried out to heaven, but the doors of heaven were shut up to Him – if He was heard, there was no answer. When we endure pain of any kind, we immediately run to those who love us most for comfort; but for Jesus, who loved His Father with an immeasurable, infinite love, when the pain became excruciating and the tears flowed ceaselessy, there were no loving arms in which to run, no sympathetic ear in which to cry – heaven was shut and His world was ended.
2. Knowledge (vs. 3-8) – as Jesus hangs and suffers on the cross, He remembers the history of His people, how in times past when they had been in trouble, usually of their own making, they cried out to God and He delivered them. God was committed in loving covenant to them and He saved them. Their trust in God led to their salvation – it led to their rescue, not to the pain of the cross. And in vs. 3 Jesus is saying that there is no fault in God – He is perfectly holy – and therefore what is happening to Him as He hangs and suffers on the cross isn’t any fault of God’s – there is no injustice here. But He is struggling to understand because no man has ever trusted so profoundly in God as Jesus did; no man has ever cried out to God more fervently and passionately to God as Jesus did – and yet He was not rescued, He was not delivered. This Jesus is being ashamed – He is being publicly put to shame as if He had never trusted in God. He’s a worm, disfigured beyond all recognition as a man, despised and hated by all. And all the while, there is utter silence from heaven.
But the cross is far from a silent place – Jesus hears the voices of His tormentors, mocking Him, leering at Him, laughing at Him, taunting Him ‘He says He trusts in God, let God rescue Him.’ And all the while, it would seem as if the ultimate injustice is taking place because this Son of God dying on the cross really is the delight of His Father, and yet He’s suffering as though God hated Him. There is no sense here, there is only what seems unjust, but it can’t be because God is holy.
3. Commitment (vs. 9-11) – Jesus looks at Himself and questions His own trust in God – is it His trust which has failed and therefore heaven has been shut up for that reason and He is being punished? But no, it can’t be – because from the moment of His conception and birth, He has trusted in God. 33 years of unbroken trust and commitment to God, but now He finds Himself on a cross with no deliverance, no salvation, no rescue from His God. The answer isn’t there.
4. Pain (vs. 12-18) – in these verses, which are too dense to go through, we have a portrait of what took place on the cross. It’s more gruesome, more intense, more painful than any physical portrayal of His crucifixion. Jesus suffers alone and His enemies seem too strong – they are the Bulls of Bashan, the roaring lions, the dogs, the congregation of evildoers. They are gathering for the kill and He’s the victim. His whole body is in agony, His life ebbing away; dehydration, exposure, blood loss, weakness, poverty, emaciation and finally death. And His heart is turned to wax and is melting within Him. There is no starker portrait of the cross possible than these verses – some have said that they could have been written by a painter at the foot of the cross, but I don’t think they could have; they could only have been written by one who had experienced the pain of the cross first hand. And what makes it doubly hard is this realisation Jesus has that His tormentors are the evildoers; if we follow the logic of vs. 3-5 it should be them on the cross and not Him. He has done nothing worthy of this death – but they are the sinners; they are the guilty ones – and yet they go free and He dies a sinner’s death.
5. Prayer (vs. 19-21a) – on the cross, Jesus turns back to what comes most natural to Him when He is in pain – prayer to God. He prays for God’s closeness; He prays for God’s speedy intervention. He knows that God is His strength and His strength is sapping away. Without God, He is nothing and He knows it. He prays for deliverance and He prays for salvation – from the claws of the dog and from the mouth of the lion. Here He is, backed into a corner, faced on all sides by His fierce enemies, clawing, scratching, mocking, piercing, killing, laughing, and He turns to God and pleads. He wants the mocking words of vs. 8 to be turned in upon themselves – for those who mocked Him to be disgraced when they see God’s deliverance of His servant.
6. Answer (vs. 21b) – then, in this last phrase of vs. 21 we have the turning point in the psalm. The NIV translates the verb here ‘save’ as an imperative, as if to say, ‘God, please save me’ – that’s a translation choice the NIV have made. But I prefer the way the King James Version translates it – “you have heard me”, or “you have saved me” – God has already acted to hear the prayers of His Son and God has saved Him from His enemies. His prayers have not gone unanswered; God has heard and has responded in love. The cross is over, the crown approaches as God delivers and saves His Son from the teeth of the lion and the strength of the dogs. The resurrection has taken place and Jesus has been rescued from the darkness and decay of the tomb.
But let’s just take stock of where we are before we move on to look at this crown. You’ll notice, by the way, that I’m not applying anything of what I say to your own lives and experiences – I’m not talking about what you should do when you are on the wrack, or when you are in pain; and that’s not because I’m not interested in you, but I think sometimes we’re so busy asking questions about what I should or shouldn’t do that we just miss the wonder of what Jesus achieved on the cross at Calvary. We’re so busy stretching out the towels and putting on the sun-cream that we never begin to enjoy sunbathing. Bask in the glory of the cross! For on that tree, the man whose trust in God was infinite died the death of an evildoer, forsaken of God, despised of men, dying in agony and desolation. But why? Not for His own sins surely, but for ours. Ours was the rebellion, His was the punishment; ours was the sin, His was the sting; ours was the evil, His was the death. Can you not see it so clearly? All He suffered, He suffered for you. These bulls of Bashan, these bones out of joint, the mocking, the forsakenness – can you not see it should have been me on that cross – it should have been me suffering for my own sin on that cross, but He took my place. It should have been my hands and feet pierced, but it was His; heaven should have closed its doors to me, but it closed them to Him instead. Can’t you see the wondrous love of Jesus and can’t you see the loving logic of the cross? How can we remain so stoical about the passion of our Lord? He was God and He suffered these things for me so that I need never endure them. But, by the same token, if you are not a Christian, can you not see the awfulness of your state – for all these curses await you – these are the righteous judgments for sin brought about by a holy God. Does it not make you tremble with fear to think that you should ever suffer them? But you need not – for to trust in Christ is to have Him suffer them all in your place. And then, like every Christian, you shall tremble with joy to think that He suffered them all in your room and stead.
[B] The Crown (vs. 22-31)
We’ve already seen the turning point of the psalm – “you have saved me”. Based on that turning point, the Lord Jesus now points forward to the crown; the triumph, the throne. Satan is utterly defeated, sin is utterly destroyed; death has lost its sting, and upon the throne of all things sits a lamb looking as if had been slain. Take away with you, by all means, the sufferings of Christ; but do not leave without having at least some sensation of the greater triumph He won through the tears. Jesus stands as Lord and God – raised from the dead, ascended up on high, exalted and given the name that is above every name – all glorious, all loving, all powerful – the Lion of the Tribe of Judah sits on the throne and wears the crown of glory. In these few verses we see Jesus wearing two crowns:
1. The Crown of the Church (vs. 22-26) – as a result of what Jesus has done on the cross and through His resurrection, we know find Him praising and declaring the name of God to His people. He stands both as the object of worship and the chief worshipper of His people. And we His people, joined with Him through the power of the Holy Spirit, united to Him through faith, worship Him and fall before Him in adoration. In vs. 22 He declares the name of God – another way of saying that He preaches about the kind of God He is – He makes known the blessed character of the good of infinite justice and infinite love. He calls on all those who stand in awe of God, those who reverence Him, literally those who fear Him, to praise Him, to glorify Him and to enthrone Him as their King. Look at the last clause of vs. 23 – ‘stand in awe of Him’ – ‘revere Him’ – that is to be the response of God’s people to what Jesus has done through His death and resurrection – awe. Do you stand in awe of God? He’s not some kind of cosmic tamagotchi to be played with and ignored when you don’t feel like it. He is the infinite God whose one and only Son suffered an infinite agony on your account. By all means, fear Him because of the terror of the Lord, but fear Him even more because of the greatness of His love for you. Surely also, this ‘standing in awe’ of God must shape our worship – it should be joyful, but it must also be reverent – the praise of God’s people must not be flippant, but serious, scriptural and awesome. Again, not only because of who God is, but also because of what He has done – ‘for He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted and He has not hidden His face from Him, but when He cried for help He heard’ and again in vs. 27, ‘the afflicted shall eat and be satisfied’. He has taken the worm that is no man and has exalted Him to the Highest place; He has taken the man with pierced hands and feet and raised Him from the criminality and torture of the cross and enthroned Him at His right hand in the heavenly glory to reign forever as King over His people. That’s the kind of God we have – full of mercy and abundant in love. He takes the lowest pond life of this world and exalts it beyond our imaginations – He takes the poor, the disfigured, the ignoble, the reprobate, the sinners – and He hears their cries for mercy. That’s the kind of King we have. Jesus glories in God, and we, in Him, glory too – and we glory in Him – we praise the name of Jesus – King of the Church.
2. The Crown of the Universe (vs. 27-31) – we live in a world of growing unrest – terrorism, global warming, wars and rumours of wars – arms races and Islamic militancy. And it is easy to despair, but look at these verses, especially vs. 29 – “For to Yahweh belongs Kingship, and He rules over the nations”. The world is not chaotic, it is not in anarchy – the earth belongs to Yahweh. And all nations will turn and bow down to Him – they will be snarlingly forced to acknowledge His Lordship and they will realise their mistake. The glitterati will be forced to bow down before the Lordship of Jesus Christ and acknowledge their own weakness. I spent a rather depressing hour last week looking through the obituary columns of the Glasgow Herald for the last year – all great men and women, towering over the rest of humanity, and yet they have gone down into the dust; they couldn’t keep themselves alive – their names will soon be forgotten, even if it takes 1000 years, they will have faded into the dust of human forgetfulness. But the name of the Lord shall be served forever – from generation to generation His greatness shall be experienced and praised. Even now, children who aren’t even a twinkle in the eyes of their mothers and fathers will come and declare the righteousness and worth-ship of God. This symphony of praise will never die down, but a bit like Ravel’s Bolero will continue to rise in an ever increasing crescendo of joyful exuberance as nation after nation comes to Christ and king after king lays their crowns before Him.
And why, and for what? The last few words of vs. 32 tell us – “He has done it”, words which are commonly thought to undergird Jesus’ last words on the cross – “it is finished”. For what do we praise God? We praise Him that Jesus, by suffering such agony on the cross has been victorious over sin and the grave. We praise Him for His finished work of redemption and salvation. And why do we praise Him? Because this salvation, through faith in Him, has been applied to us by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are those who benefit from His death – His blood makes us clean and His death ensures our eternal life. It should have been you on that cross – but Jesus died in your place. And now, He is on the throne of the Universe – the Saviour with your name engraved on the palm of His hands.
And that’s what we must take with us as we sing our final psalm – this is our Saviour, the One who died so that I could live, crowned triumphant over the whole universe. Catch the vision of the Psalms – the Kingship and Awesome Glory of God. If you’ve got that vision, then you will not be able to keep yourselves from singing! These are our war-songs, our praise-songs, our lament songs – these are our everything in praise. So go and sing the psalms, and pray the psalms and live the psalms – but more than anything else, know the Christ of the Psalms – the crucified yet crowned Lord Jesus. AMEN