The Suffering of the Messiah

Psalms 22:1-13

To the Chief Musician. Set to "The Deer of the Dawn." A Psalm of David.

1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Why are You so far from helping Me,
And from the words of My groaning?

2 O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear;
And in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But You are holy,
Enthroned in the praises of Israel.

4 Our fathers trusted in You;
They trusted, and You delivered them.
5 They cried to You, and were delivered;
They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.

6 But I am a worm, and no man;
A reproach of men, and despised by the people.

7 All those who see Me ridicule Me;
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 "He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him;
Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!"

9 But You are He who took Me out of the womb;
You made Me trust while on My mother's breasts.
10 I was cast upon You from birth.
From My mother's womb
You have been My God.

11 Be not far from Me,
For trouble is near;
For there is none to help.

12 Many bulls have surrounded Me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me.
13 They gape at Me with their mouths,
Like a raging and roaring lion.

The first half of this famously quoted prophetic Psalm speaks of the suffering of the Messiah in figurative language.  The second half moves into the praise and posterity of the Messiah whom we call the Christ.  Here it begins with the questioning cry of rejection, for how can God abandon His Anointed in this way?  How can God be so far away as if rejecting His chosen and precious one?  Doe He not hear the deep groaning, the cry of distress, while the servant is suffering so greatly?  He cries again to God in the second verse, asking how he can remain unanswered while crying out day and night for relief from the anguish.  Yet he acknowledges that God is not unloving or unfair or distant, but He is holy.  Even the songs of praise by His people loft God up to the throne of mercy and sovereign grace.  They know He is just and fair, no matter the apparent circumstances.  This is why His people have trusted and continue to trust God.  His proven character and word secure these things for them.  The psalmist sings of the past deliverance, the saving works, of his God, the ones who were not ashamed to cry for help, and who relied on the answers which followed their cries.  Yet here the psalmist despises himself in the eyes of others because he has been left alone and without help.  He knows only the despising of those around him.  He is rejected as Christ Jesus was on the cross as He suffered for His people who refused to call out to Him in faith again.  He, however, then suffered in their place (and ours) while rejected and forsaken because of their sin.  He also assumed their sin as if His own, to be rejected by God and suffer in their stead without being delivered from that suffering.  We see here how God’s people ridiculed their Messiah, how they mocked Him for trusting God to save (Matthew 20:19), even sneering at His being the Beloved of the Father.  People do this even today (Acts 17:32), mocking and sneering at Christ as they reject Him and His people.  Few find deliverance because of their rejection, unfortunately (Matthew 7:13-14).  They deny God to their own destruction (Romans 9:22-23).  But the Anointed still died for them to provide deliverance from a fiery fate of unending suffering, having suffered on the cross in His own body to spare their eternal just dues.  The psalmist speaks prophetically of the foreordained and foretold birth of the chosen one (Luke 24:26-27), and of each of His people in a lesser sense, pointing out that God has always been His God and those He chooses such as the psalmist and us.  We echo the cry of hope in verse eleven for God to come near to help our seemingly hopeless situation and sentence of death as the prosperous who reject surround Him and we who are then found in Christ.  The lion continues to roar and threaten (1 Peter 5:8), but our trust, our faith, in our Father is our protection because of the suffering servant who laid down His life on the Cross for us, rejected and forsaken, accepted and loved.  This is the hope given by the suffering of the Messiah.