Matthew 27:45-54. Psalm 22. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 20, 2024.
We are going to take a break from the book of Acts this week and look at Jesus, the Afflicted One.
Isaiah 53:4 says, “We esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.”
Also, Psalm 22:24 says, “He [God] has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted [one].” It is worth noting that “afflicted” is singular. It could be referring to all who are afflicted as a singular group. However, in light of the rest of the psalm, it is more likely that it is speaking of the particular afflicted one that David presented earlier in the psalm.
Before we go to Psalm 22 though, let’s start in Matthew 27.
Our passage picks up with Jesus having been on the cross for three hours. Verse 45 uses Roman time terminology. The hours of the day are counted from 6 AM forward. Thus, the sixth hour until ninth hour would equal noon to 3 PM. To remind ourselves, Jesus is first put on the cross at 9 AM.
There is an interesting change that happens at noon. For the first three hours that Jesus was on the cross, everything seemed natural. A man is dying. It is day time, and the world is going on like normal. However, at noon, a darkness comes over the land. This cannot be a solar eclipse because Passover is during the full moon. This would put the moon on the opposite side of earth from the sun. There are conjectures on the mechanism that God used to “turn off the lights” for three hours. A common one is to link it to a large volcanic explosion. Regardless of how it was done, this ominous situation continues until the death of Jesus. In fact, after the death of Jesus, a large earthquake hits Jerusalem. The darkness followed by an earthquake coinciding with the execution of Jesus would leave the average person watching freaked out. Anyone watching this would think that something really bad had just happened. For the first three hours, a guy like Caiaphas, the high priest, would feel justified. But from noon to 3 PM, it would leave one with a strange sensation.
We see this with the Roman soldier mentioned in verse 54. He has seen a lot of men crucified. He is shocked and states, “Truly this was the Son of God!”
The death of Jesus is accompanied by a sense of God’s apparent silence. How could God let this happen?
This is where we should remind ourselves of the hopes of the populace of Israel. Jesus had healed people and taught them in a way that amazed the multitudes. They had come to believe that he must be Messiah. However, the leaders of Israel figured out very quickly that Jesus was calling them to repent too. This provoked them to despise him and to work to kill him.
The populace hoped that Jesus, who must be messiah, would begin removing the yoke of the Romans, and yet now, he has been publicly executed. Think of it. If you have put all your hopes in a man, and then, he is killed, it shocks you to your core. On top of this, they heard Jesus crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” It could appear to some that Jesus himself expected God to stop his execution and is now in the throes of disillusionment.
This idea is quite common today. The average person who doesn’t believe in Jesus will point to some bad thing that happened, or simply that there is evil in the world, and ask, “How could God let that happen?” If God exists and really is all-good, then surely He would stop all the evil that is happening on this planet.
Jesus at the cross fundamentally challenges this contention. We think we understand, and we think that God should stop evil. Our tendency is to talk about these things as if we really understand all the repercussions. However, these things really are greater than we understand. This is probably why God designed humans to become parents. This way, we too can learn what it is like to bend over backwards for the good of a young person who will give you flak for your choices, at some point. I think parenting is God inviting us to know Him just a little more than we did before we became parents and can have every one of our decisions second-guessed. There is a certain wisdom to the circle of life. We generally do not understand these things until we grow old.
The reality on the ground at the crucifixion of Jesus says, there is no way that this man can be Messiah. Otherwise, God would have stopped it. So, what about this question that Jesus cried out about God forsaking him?
I mentioned earlier that the first thought of skeptics is the cynical angle. Jesus realizes that he is going to die, and somehow he thought God would deliver him. He is no messiah, and he was wrong.
There are good reasons to completely reject this idea. First, throughout the Gospels, Jesus warned his disciples over and over again that he was going to Jerusalem and he would be killed there. Of course, the cynic will believe that the disciples made this up after the fact.
Before we look at the next reason to reject this idea, I do want to say this. I believe that a part of the reason that Jesus cries out this question from the cross is to let us know that he gets it. For every time we have felt that God has abandoned us while something evil, something bad, does its thing, here is God in the flesh telling us that He gets it. It is hard, and our flesh doesn’t like it. The weight of God’s silence in the face of such injustice can be crushing.
We can place ultimatums on God, challenging Him to do such and such by this time, or we are going to cast our faith aside (whether in a rejection of His existence, or of His goodness). Of course, Jesus knows better than that. Still, he lets us hear these words from his mouth.
I believe that there is a spiritually immature part of all of us that wants God “to fix” our problems and the bad things in our life. We typically pray for God to take away anything bad. We want Him to bail us out of any nightmares that come our way. Of course, wise parents know that it is often better to help kids through their problems and through their consequences, rather than taking them away. A wise parent will come alongside their kids and help them through the problem, rather than completely removing it for them.
I think that God is doing this in the Garden of Eden. He is not judging Adam and Eve because He is hurt and wants to make them pay. He definitely doesn’t give the decree and make their sin and its consequences just go away. Rather, He chooses to walk with them down this tough road they have chosen, and He gives them aid against an enemy that is far to strong for them.
The cross causes us to shout, “Take it away, God!” “Remove the wicked people, and remove all injustice!” However, Jesus tells us, “Pick up your cross and follow me!”
This leads us to the second reason why this cry in verse 46 is not a cry of disillusionment. This was a time when books were not divided into chapters and verses. Though the Psalms are small units within a collection, they were not known by a number. Jews would not say, “Let’s read Psalm 22.” Instead, they would use the first line, the first sentence, to refer to it. Thus, Jesus is not just telling us that he knows our pain of feeling forsaken by God. He is actually telling us to read Psalm 22 and pay attention to it. He is connecting that Psalm to his current situation. Of course, there were some people who couldn’t quite hear what he was saying. Jesus was also in agonizing pain, making it harder to enunciate his words. The Aramaic word “Eli” means my God. However, some thought he might be calling out for Elijah (it was prophesied that Elijah would show up to help Messiah). However, some would have wondered why Jesus was quoting from this psalm (what we call Psalm 22).
David wrote this psalm roughly 1,000 years before Jesus. David wrote many psalms. However, he was more than a musician. David was also a prophet. In 2 Samuel 23:2, David says, “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue.” He goes on to tell what God had told him. God had told him that the one who rules men should be just. He should be like the rising of the sun and the coming of the dew in the morning. These are beautiful images of something that is a blessing. Yet, David also says that his family was not so. He had fallen short, and his family would fall short too. Remember, that David had two sons try to take the kingdom from him while he was alive. Yet, God also told David that He would still cause the promise of an Anointed King to “shoot forth,” or “branch out.” Isaiah (chapter 4) and Zechariah (chapters 3 and 6) both picked up this verb and turned it into a title for Messiah, The Branch, or The Shoot.
What I am getting at is this. David is not just writing a psalm about something bad that happened to him. This is a prophetic psalm that looked forward to something that God showed David.
Jesus and his apostles also quoted and spoke of David’s psalms as prophecy. So, why did Jesus point out this psalm?
Psalm 22 is a strange psalm. It has two different types of psalms stitched together. It starts off as a lament psalm. A lament psalm basically cries out to God about a suffering situation. Often, wicked people are involved, causing the pain. Or, they at least pile on with condemnation. Lament psalms typically plead to God for help and will end with a statement of faith in God’s character. Verses 1 through 21a of Psalm 22 are exactly this.
Yet, in the second half of verse 21, something happens that changes the whole character of the psalm. Verses 21b through the end of the psalm (verse 31) switch to a psalm of Thanksgiving. This is somewhat odd. It would be like a song that starts out singing the blues, and then turns into Pharrell Williams singing, Happy. More than this, it is not quite clear what exactly happened to change a scene where someone is being put to death by wicked men, into a scene that is praising God and calling everyone to join him.
God showed David something about Messiah through his own affliction. King Saul and Israel had rejected God’s anointing of David. Yet, Messiah would also be rejected and afflicted by his own people.
Who is this afflicted one in the first part of Psalm 22? It cannot be David. David’s descriptions of the afflicted on do not fit him. Yes, some of the things fit him. David was afflicted. Look at verses 7-8. This description could fit David. He had become a hunted man by King Saul under a false charge of treason. This had him always on the run. It was common for people to despise and ridicule David at this point in his life.
How about verses 12 to 13. The bulls and the lions here are symbolic of people who had power within Israel’s society. King Saul had power and position. David often felt like he had no where to turn to and was being encircled like a prey hiding in a thicket from predators.
Still, there are too many other descriptions that cannot be about David. Verse 14 pictures the afflicted one of being poured out like water and having all of his bones out of joint. Verse 16 speaks of dogs (more animal imagery for people) piercing the afflicted one’s feet and hands. Verse 17 has the afflicted one being so emaciated that he can count his bones and people are staring at him. Lastly, verse 18 has his garments being divvied up while he looks on.
This does not describe David. It describes someone who is being put to death, someone who is not going to need his clothes anymore because he is headed to the grave.
I imagine that David wrestled with God over why He seemed so silent during David’s affliction. Yet, God showed David that what he went through would be nothing compared to what King Messiah would go through. David is the little-“a” afflicted one, but Messiah would be the capital-“A” Afflicted One.
This Afflicted One would come to remove all injustice. However, God is also a God of grace who doesn’t want anyone to be destroyed. In the Affliction of the Afflicted One, God is giving space and giving time for us to repent by putting our faith in Jesus. We could respond to the horrible truth that is displayed at the cross of Jesus: this is what even the best of us do to God. If it wasn’t for His grace, we would have been destroyed along time ago.
It is easy to miss this message from David. Yes, they were excited about Messiah removing injustice because that is clearly the Gentiles. However, they missed the rejected aspect of the Messiah (well, he will be rejected by Messiah, but not us!).
All along this part of Psalm 22 is the idea that God is silent. God doesn’t do anything about this horrible affliction from the wicked. At least, up until we reach verse 21.
“Save me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered me!” No matter how you translate this verse, two things stick out that cannot change. The first verb “save me” is a form of the verb that makes it clear that the person is still praying. There is no question about this. However the last verb “answered me” is not in this form. It is a form that says the action of the verb has been completed. Somehow the afflicted one goes from crying out for salvation to declaring that God has heard him, answered him. This is the hinge point of the psalm. God has answered His Afflicted One, but it will not be explained just exactly what God did. Yet, it must be something really big to change the scene from a righteous man being put to death, to him praising God.
Even if you were being killed, pierced, emaciated, and your bones were out of joint, and God answered you, you would not be in a condition to be praising God. You would be in a hospital for a very long time asking why God didn’t intervene sooner.
There is not only a switch of genre in this psalm (lament to thanksgiving), but there is a switch in who is narrating the scene. All throughout the lament, it is first-person narration of what is happening to him. Even the praise in verse 21 begins by the afflicted one. “You have answered me!” Verses 22 and 23 continue the praise, but in verse 24 we see that the narrator has either began to speak of himself in the third-person, or David has taken over and is prophetically calling Israel to pay attention to this amazing thing that God is going to do. All of Israel are called to praise the Lord because the Lord delivered (will deliver) this Afflicted One. David will go on to recount how this amazing deliverance will even cause the Gentiles to praise God (verse 27). What could happen that would cause the ends of the earth and the nations to give praise and worship to God, remembering what God did for His Afflicted One and “turning to the LORD”? What could cause “all the families of the nations” to worship before him? Then, verse 28 clearly ties into the Messianic prophecies that picture the Anointed King that God sends to rule over all the nations. “The Kingdom is the Lord’s, and He rules over the nations!” This Afflicted One is that King! Nothing in David’s life, or Israel’s history, even comes close to something like this, except for one person. It is Jesus.
However, there is more. In verse 29, the David employs language of “all those who go down to the dust.” They will bow before the Afflicted One. This language of going into the dust is language that speaks of people who have died (can’t keep themselves alive). They are mortals who go into the grave. It appears to say that even those who have gone into the grave will bow before him. How can that be? Of course, the New Testament testimony of what the Apostles came to know about Jesus shows us that the death of the Afflicted One was overturned by Resurrection.
Jesus is pointing us to this passage. He is not saying that he has been forsaken by God. He is saying exactly the opposite. He is making the declaration of truth in the face of all the devils of hell and what they are unleashing upon him. It may look like He is, but the Father will not abandon me!
Where are we today? The Gospel of who Jesus is has gone to the ends of the earth, and many people of every tribe, language, and nation, have bowed before Jesus and worshipped him. Yet, the powers of the world are not choosing Jesus as Lord of lords and King of kings.
The challenge for us is to believe what Scriptures says, what the Spirit says, about Messiah, even when it appears that it will never happen. He will be afflicted to death, but God will answer him, has answered him!
Perhaps you are in the middle of affliction right now. Perhaps you feel that God doesn’t care about you and has forsaken you. His testimony is that He does love you and won’t abandon you. You just need to put your faith in Him and trust Jesus.
Why would Jesus go through all that affliction? He was paying the price for your sins and for mine. He was making a way for us to repent of our sins and believe in him so that we can be forgiven by God the Father.
Fatherly wisdom in the Scriptures tells us that God has come down and gone through the fire with us. He has helped us and will bring us to the other side of this difficult affliction. We will come out the other side more like Him.
Friend, our weak mortal state is not the final word. God has promised something beyond this. Let’s choose to identify with the Afflicted One who chose to identify with us!