Matthew 27

⁴⁵ Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶ And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ⁴⁷ And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” ⁴⁸ And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. ⁴⁹ But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” ⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

I think one of the best feel-good viral videos I have ever seen is a video of a man sitting on a bench in a city park. He is listening to Jon Bon Jovi’s 1986 rock classic “Livin’ on a Prayer” and loudly singing the opening lines by himself. The video picks up with him singing midway through the opening verse.

Gina works the diner all day
Working for her man, she brings home her pay
For love—for love

As he sings these lines, a number of people lounging in the park turn to him with smiles of pleasant curiosity. Slowly, some join in as he continues.

She says we’ve got to hold on to what we’ve got
Cause it doesn’t make a difference
If we make it or not
We’ve got each other and that’s a lot
For love—well give it a shot

And then—the greatest part of the video—by the time he hits the chorus seemingly the whole park has joined in and loudly sings along with him:

Whooah, we’re halfway there
Livin on a prayer
Take my hand and we’ll make it—I swear
Livin on a prayer

Now what on earth, you might ask, does this have to do with Jesus saying “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” from the cross?

Simply this: In the video, the man loudly proclaims something that was well known to the majority of people within earshot. He shouts out the beginning words of a song that had cultural currency and, to judge by the joint singing of the chorus, cultural buy-in. As he does so, we see the crowd move from (a) curiosity and confusion to (b) partial participation to (c) majority buy-in and celebration. In a sense, the man on the bench invites the crowd on a journey and most of them agree to take it with him. But he invites them through proclaiming the opening lines of the song. He invites them through the “hook,” if you will, of a doorway through which they knew they would need to pass to greater things: the great sing-along chorus of that song.

There is something like this happening in our text in Matthew 27.

⁴⁵ Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁶ And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ⁴⁷ And some of the bystanders, hearing it, said, “This man is calling Elijah.” ⁴⁸ And one of them at once ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine, and put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink. ⁴⁹ But the others said, “Wait, let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.” ⁵⁰ And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit.

Jesus is quoting the first words of a psalm that many of the Jews would have known well. At first, there is confusion, as you can see in the unfolding of our text. Then, in time, with the coming of the Spirit upon the church, some join in and sing with Him. And now a multitude from every nation, tribe, and tongue joins with Jesus in singing the rest of this psalm. And let us be clear of this: The rest of this psalm matters immensely. Jesus opens a door for us so we can walk with Him through this great psalm and eventually reach the great chorus of praise!

Psalm 22 is a psalm of suffering.

There is indeed a strong note of suffering in Psalm 22, and it is telling that Jesus quotes it from the cross. There are three suffering sections in particular.

¹ My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning? ² O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. ⁷ All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads; ⁸ “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

¹² Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me; ¹³ they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. ¹⁴ I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast; ¹⁵ my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. ¹⁶ For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—¹⁷ I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; ¹⁸ they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.

If one looks closely at these verses, one finds that there are three different kinds of suffering the psalmist feels:

• the suffering that comes from a sense or perception of the distance and silence of God (vv.1–2);
• the suffering of his own person (vv.14–15, 17);
• the suffering resulting from the mocking and cruelty of human beings (vv.6–8, 12–13, 16, 17–18).

In short, Jesus’ appeal to Psalm 22 reveals the totality of His suffering. He suffered (1) before God, (2) before man, and (3) within Himself. His suffering was therefore vertical, horizontal, and internal.

The famed British comedian John Cleese recently shared his thoughts about religion and, in particular, Christianity. John Stackhouse wrote an interesting article summarizing Cleese’s thoughts and responding to some aspects of them. Stackhouse writes:

More troubling is his throwaway comment about the Cross of Christ being an “odd choice” as the central symbol of Christianity. Instead of quoting any one of a hundred theologians who could tell him why it is and should be, he quotes instead a Buddhist who merely says, “How extraordinary to have an instrument of torture as the central symbol of your religion” (143).

Insidious here is Cleese’s insinuation that the Cross represents the Church’s insistence on acquiescence to its authority on pain of eternal damnation and the Church’s use of inquisitorial torture to police such belief. But to posit such a linkage is to completely misunderstand the function of the Cross in Christian doctrine and symbology, as even a cursory glance at a Wikipedia article on Christian theology would make plain.[1]

Indeed, this “central symbol of [our] religion,” the cross, is not about the church wielding oppressive power, though, tragically, the church has indeed done that in her history! No, the cross is about the love of God. It is about a Savior who was willing to suffer this degree of pain, this degree of agony, and to do so for John Cleese…and for me…and for you!

When Jesus quotes Psalm 22, He is pointing to His suffering…and, in so doing, to the depths of His love for us! He is talking about the price that was paid, about what He was willing to endure for us.

Psalm 22 is a psalm of remembrance.

And yet, interspersed throughout the sections on suffering, are sections on remembrance, sections in which the psalmist recalls the goodness and faithfulness of God!

³ Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel. ⁴ In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. ⁵ To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

⁹ Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts. ¹⁰ On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God. ¹¹ Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help.

Here, the psalmist looks back to (a) God’s faithfulness to Israel (vv.3–5) and (b) God’s faithfulness to him (vv.9–11). God never abandoned Israel. The fathers trusted in Him, and He delivered them, rescued them. And God never abandoned the psalmist. He created him, brought him forth from the womb, and loved Him from the beginning.

This makes the words of Jesus profoundly important, for it actually calls into question the notion of the Father “abandoning” the Son on the cross. Yes, sin brings about a disruption of relationship in that God is perfectly holy and because the Son becomes our sin on the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21). But let us see that Psalm 22, the first line of which Jesus quotes, is most decidedly not a psalm of abandonment.

Is there room for speaking of the Father “turning His face away” when the Son takes on the sin of the world? We must be careful here, for two great truths must be held in balance: (1) the relationship-disrupting odium of sin and (2) the faithfulness of the Father to the Son. So, if that language is used, it must be explained very carefully indeed.

Psalm 22 is a psalm of deliverance.

Ultimately, Psalm 22 speaks of the deliverance of God. The deliverance sections are two in number.

¹⁹ But you, O Lord, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid! ²⁰ Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! ²¹ Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!

In verses 19–21, the psalmist cries out for deliverance and also seems to recall God’s deliverance at the end of verse 21. Then we find a note of strong praise and worship!

²² I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: ²³ You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel! ²⁴ For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him. ²⁵ From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him. ²⁶ The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the Lord! May your hearts live forever! ²⁷ All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. ²⁸ For kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. ²⁹ All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. ³⁰ Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; ³¹ they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.

The psalmist’s praise arises from his awareness of God’s faithfulness: “he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (v.24). This necessarily qualifies the earlier talk of God turning His face away.

What are we to make of this, then? When Jesus quotes Psalm 22:1, is it a cry of genuine and actual dereliction, or a teaser for the wider picture of deliverance?

Theologian James Leo Garrett Jr. has offered a survey of the various ways that interpreters have understood the cry of dereliction (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”) and its implications on the question of whether or not Jesus was actually forsaken on the cross. He writes (appealing to John Stott’s summary):

• First, some have reckoned the cry to be one of unbelieving “despair” and in taking such a view have impugned unbelief to the Son of God.
• Second, others such as Terrot Reaveley Glover (1869–1943) have held that, whereas Jesus felt forsaken, he was not in reality forsaken by the Father. But does not Ps. 22:1 suggest more than feeling?
• Third, still others have regarded the cry as one of “victory” inasmuch as Psalm 22 ends (vv. 22–31) on a note of victory. But why did Jesus quote v. 1a and not from vv. 22–31?

The first option—Jesus was mistaken—should be rejected. I believe the second should be as well and consider it but a nuanced version of the first point. I believe it best to reject any notion that Jesus was mistaken about what was happening on the cross, even if the cry arose from the torment of His humanity.

I consider the third option to have, as we have seen, a strong kernel of truth in it. Ultimately, Psalm 22 is a psalm of victory though, yes, as Garrett notes, Jesus did quote from verse 1 and not from verses 22–31.

Garrett concludes his survey by writing:

These interpretations seem to be much less convincing than that which takes the cry to reflect a genuine dereliction, or Godforsakenness, as Robert William Dale (1829–1895), John R. W. Stott, and Jürgen Moltmann have forthrightly held.

I would propose a combination of point 3 and of Garrett’s conclusion. There was a genuine aspect of “forsakenness”—for lack of a word that could probably capture Jesus’ meaning better here—but also a note of victory. The missing key is the resurrection.

Can we not take Jesus’ appeal to Psalm 22:1 as a cry of genuine dereliction but take His appeal to the whole psalm (by virtue of His appeal to verse 1) to be a prophetic look toward the resurrection? In this reading, Jesus would ultimately not be forsaken and God would raise Him from the dead!

So this cry is a cry of dereliction…and a cry of victory! The dereliction was experienced on the cross. The victory was experienced three days later.[2]

Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 22:1 invites us into an entire beautiful picture of God. Yes, it is significant that He specifically quotes verse 1. But it is significant that the whole psalm is not, ultimately, one of abandonment.

The Father remains faithful to the Son, and the Son to the Father.

Let the church cry “Amen!”

 

[1] https://medium.com/@johngstackhousejr/and-now-for-something-not-completely-different-john-cleese-on-religion-2445a2ea12cc

[2] Garrett, James Leo, Jr. Systematic Theology Volume 2. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock. Logos edition.