Psalm 22

Sometimes, I think, we may not give the Psalms enough credit. We read them for moral lessons (like the importance of God’s Word from Psalm 119), or comfort (Psalm 23), or as prophecies of Christ (such as Psalm 110). Or we use them as the basis for praise songs like U2’s “40” (Psalm 40) or Third Day’s “Your Love Oh Lord” (Psalm 36).

And all of those are good and true and wonderful. But the Psalms are more than that; it’s the prayer book of the Bible, and the prayers and praises written within it can become part of our prayers, shaping our thoughts and attitudes towards God and giving us the words to say if we don’t know how to pray. As my grandfather used to say, the book of Psalms is unique because, in it, humanity’s words to God become part of God’s Word to humanity.

What would it look like to pray Psalm 22 as our prayer?

My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
I groan in prayer, but help seems far away.
My God, I cry out during the day,
but you do not answer,
and during the night my prayers do not let up.
You are holy;
you sit as king receiving the praises of Israel.
In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted in you and you rescued them.
To you they cried out, and they were saved;
in you they trusted and they were not disappointed.
But I am a worm, not a man;
people insult me and despise me.
All who see me taunt me;
they mock me and shake their heads.
They say,
“Commit yourself to the Lord!
Let the Lord rescue him!
Let the Lord deliver him, for he delights in him.”
Yes, you are the one who brought me out from the womb
and made me feel secure on my mother’s breasts.
I have been dependent on you since birth;
from the time I came out of my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Do not remain far away from me,
for trouble is near and I have no one to help me.
Many bulls surround me;
powerful bulls of Bashan hem me in.
They open their mouths to devour me
like a roaring lion that rips its prey.
My strength drains away like water;
all my bones are dislocated.
My heart is like wax;
it melts away inside me.
The roof of my mouth is as dry as a piece of pottery;
my tongue sticks to my gums.
You set me in the dust of death.
Yes, wild dogs surround me—
a gang of evil men crowd around me;
like a lion they pin my hands and feet.
I can count all my bones;
my enemies are gloating over me in triumph.
They are dividing up my clothes among themselves;
they are rolling dice for my garments.
But you, O Lord, do not remain far away.
You are my source of strength. Hurry and help me!
Deliver me from the sword.
Save my life from the claws of the wild dogs.
Rescue me from the mouth of the lion
and from the horns of the wild oxen.
You have answered me.
I will declare your name to my countrymen.
In the middle of the assembly I will praise you.
You loyal followers of the Lord, praise him.
All you descendants of Jacob, honor him.
All you descendants of Israel, stand in awe of him.
For he did not despise or detest the suffering of the oppressed.
He did not ignore him;
when he cried out to him, he responded.
You are the reason I offer praise in the great assembly;
I will fulfill my promises before the Lord’s loyal followers.
Let the oppressed eat and be filled.
Let those who seek his help praise the Lord.
May you live forever!
Let all the people of the earth acknowledge the Lord and turn to him.
Let all the nations worship you.
For the Lord is king
and rules over the nations.
All the thriving people of the earth will join the celebration and worship;
all those who are descending into the grave will bow before him,
including those who cannot preserve their lives.
A whole generation will serve him;
they will tell the next generation about the Lord.
They will come and tell about his saving deeds;
they will tell a future generation what he has accomplished.

On Good Friday, we read this as referring to Christ. And we should! The details of Christ’s death - pinned or pierced hands and feet, thirsty, surrounded by enemies, with sarcastic taunts that God should save him, his clothes divided up and used as gambling prizes - are uncannily accurate for something written one thousand years before. Clearly, the Spirit spoke through David, to enable him to prophesy. But I don’t think that David necessarily knew he was prophesying; instead, I think, he spoke metaphorically about his own life, and his prayer was truer than he knew.

David could have written Psalm 22 in response to several circumstances in his own life. Saul, his master and the anointed king of Israel, went insane and tried to kill him; David’s son Amnon raped his daughter Tamar; his son Absalom conspired against him, forcing him to flee Jerusalem for his life; his trusted advisor Ahithophel betrayed him and joined Absalom’s rebellion; his son Adonijah tried to steal the throne in David’s old age.

Since the Psalms are the prayer book of the Bible, and if David initially wrote Psalm 22 about his own life rather than Christ’s, then can we pray it, too? I believe we can. Most of us have experienced times when God seemed to not answer, or when his help seemed far away. We haven’t (I hope) had enemies like David’s, but we have experienced enemies; we’ve seen people taunt believers and sarcastically dismiss God’s help; we may have felt times when our strength drains away, when our hearts are like wax. Praying Psalm 22 helps us give words to these experiences. And it also reminds us, as David reminded himself, that God protected our physical and spiritual ancestors; that he has provided for us since we came out of our mothers’ wombs; that we look forward to praising God for his response; that nations and future generations will acknowledge God. And remembering God’s faithfulness in the past, both to past believers and in our own individual lives, and remembering his promises for the future can help us in the present.

What does it look like to pray Psalm 22 as our prayer on Good Friday? Good Friday reminds us that, just as David’s words in Psalm 22 were truer than he knew and ultimately applied to Christ far more directly than they did to David, our own prayers are truer than we know. If we feel that God does not answer, Jesus felt that too; if we feel weak or despondent, Jesus felt so more; if we face opposition from others (either personal hostility from individuals or generalized rejection or indifference of a fallen society), Jesus received far worse. And he chose to do so: all the suffering that David prayed, that we pray, Jesus voluntarily took upon himself on the cross, to defeat evil and show his love for us. All the pain that believers throughout history have prayed, all the pain from believers and unbelievers alike that has gone unspoken, Jesus took upon himself. Not only that, but all the times when we’re the enemy - when, knowingly or unknowingly, we’re the ones hemming others in, piercing them or pinning them down, acting like we don’t believe in God’s help, leaving someone feeling weak or in despair - Jesus took that upon himself too.

Because Jesus didn’t just pay the penalty for our sins on the cross (as if the word “just” could apply to so great a salvation). Easter shows us that God the Son fully identified with humanity; that, whatever the depths of our fallenness and suffering, Jesus did not exempt himself from that; that we can therefore trust in him and his love.