Forsaken in Our Place
The Story
Psalm 22 is a song of desolation written by David roughly a thousand years before Christ. It opens with the loneliest line in the Bible — a cry to a God who seems to have left the room — and then describes a suffering so specific it is eerie: enemies sneering, a body wracked and dehydrated, hands and feet pierced, onlookers gambling for the sufferer's clothes. And yet, remarkably, the psalm does not end in the dark. Halfway through it turns: “he has not despised… the affliction of the afflicted… he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard” (v. 24). It ends in worldwide worship — “all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD” (v. 27). This is what the Hebrew poets knew that we often forget: lament is not the opposite of faith. It is faith, talking to God in the dark.
What It Calls Us To
Psalm 22 gives us permission we are often too polite to take: to bring God our “why?” The life of faith is not a performance of relentless cheerfulness. Here is sacred Scripture that begins, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” — which means your worst night has words, and they are already in the prayer book. But notice the psalm prays its complaint to God, not merely about Him; it keeps talking to the One who seems silent. And notice where the talking leads — not to despair but to a congregation of worshippers from every nation. Take your darkness to God honestly, and trust that the story is not over at verse one.
How Jesus Fulfills It
Now stand at the cross. After hours of darkness Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). He is not improvising; He is praying Psalm 22 from its first line — and in doing so, claiming the whole psalm as His own. Look how the details land on Him and no one else: the mockers wagging their heads (Matthew 27:39), the pierced hands and feet (a Roman cross, written a millennium before crucifixion was invented), the soldiers casting lots for His clothing (John 19:24, quoting v. 18). On the cross Jesus is forsaken — really forsaken — so that we never will be. He drinks the cup of God-abandonment to the dregs so that even in our darkest “why?” the Father's face is turned toward us in Him. And the psalm's turn comes true on the third day: the forsaken One is vindicated, and “all the ends of the earth” begin, even now, to remember and turn to the LORD.
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ. Amen.