My God, my God …” Psalm 22:1 KJV
My God, my God…” Psalm22:1 NASB
I am very conscious that I have often turned to Psalm 22 in these Monday Meditations. Yet the Psalm is inexhaustible in the light it casts upon the sufferings of our Lord Jesus, and the themes that it contains.
While every word and phrase cannot be stretched to apply to the Lord Jesus, the vast majority of phrases transcend the experience of David or any other saint. They can only point forward to another – the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, we see devotion and dependence, trust amidst trial, and beauty amidst the beasts which assaulted Him. Think of His words which head the Psalm: “My God.” Here is a relationship owned amidst the severest of trials. All around are men mocking His sufferings and loneliness. Yet, amidst their taunts, He owns God as “My God.”
Trial has brought many men and women to deny God. We have all heard others blaspheme God by saying something to the effect, “If there is a God why did this happen to me?” Yet a cross death only displayed how He cherished that relationship.
He did not look beyond His God for any explanations. His heart was occupied with God at the cross. He was a worshiper amidst the waves which buffeted His holy soul. “Thou art holy,” was the praise that came from His heart. The “many waters” of suffering which went over His head, did not quench or slacken His love and worship. In a way that we cannot comprehend, He was delighting in God at the very moment He was enduring the stroke from God.
His dependence was also echoed in His words, “My God.” He did not turn to anyone else. In His suffering and trial, He did not only own God but expressed His dependence on God alone. The One Who was cast upon God from the womb now expressed that same spirit of dependence in those six lonely hours at Calvary.
On the cross, the Lord Jesus worshiped His God, He delighted in Him, expressed His dependence upon Him, and displayed His uncompromising devotion to Him. In His Son, God found everything He ever sought. Here was a Son totally devoted to His will; a man Who expressed full dependence, refusing the independence which marks all humanity. Here was a worshiper Who gave back to God all he desired and deserved. As a Servant, the Lord Jesus brought delight to His Master (Isa 42:1).
The fragrance which arose from the cross will eternally fill the heart of God with infinite delight. It will, as well, fill the hearts of the redeemed in heaven with worship and praise.
Consider
Psalm 22 is normally spoken of as the psalm of the sin offering. Yet it is not always possible to remove from it the thoughts of the pleasure which God found in His Son. It is difficult, if not impossible, to compartmentalize the aspects of Christ’s suffering and death; Everything He is and did is so interrelated, bringing not only satisfaction to the throne of God but pleasure to the heart of His Father.