Let’s play a game of “Finish the lyrics.”

I say: Amazing Grace … You say: (see correct response below)

I say: Holy Holy Holy … You say:

How about we try this with Scripture? I say: The Lord is my Shepherd … You say:

I say: Our Father who art in Heaven … You say:

Educated and religious Jews used a similar technique to recite memorized psalms. And so did Jesus when passers-by yelled insults at him as he hung dying on a cross. The religious leaders mocked him:

Let God rescue him now—if he takes pleasure in him!

Matthew 27:43 CSB

They thought God had forsaken Jesus because he did not save him from death. So Jesus gathered enough breath to quote the first few words of a psalm. He knew devout Jews would immediately remember the rest of it.

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken (abandoned) me?”

Psalm 22:1 (also Matt 27:46)

Jesus wasn’t addressing God. If he were, he would have called him “Abba Father” as he always did. Instead he used the psalmist’s own words, identifying with his anguish. Jesus wanted his people to know he was fulfilling a prophecy that predicted his specific suffering.

Everyone who sees me mocks me; they sneer and shake their heads … I am poured out like water, and all my bones are disjointed; my heart is like wax, melting within me. My strength is dried up like baked clay; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You put me into the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has closed in on me; they pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people look and stare at me. They divided my garments among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothing.

Psalm 22:7; 14–18 CSB

While it looked like he was forsaken by God, Jesus verbalized his faith that the Father was with him. His cry of anguish turned into praise:

I will declare your name to my people; in the assembly I will praise you … For he [God] has not despised or abhorred the torment of the oppressed. He did not hide his face from him but listened when he cried to him for help.

Psalm 22:22, 24 CSB

But Jesus’s suffering has a purpose. It leads to our salvation:

All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him, for dominion belongs to the LORD and he rules over the nations. They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!

Psalms 22:27–28, 31 NIV

My pastor, Libin Abraham, beautifully applies Jesus’s words to us today: “Jesus is giving us permission to be honest about our pain. [He] is expressing his faith in a God who doesn’t turn away from our pain. Anguish and faith can be held together. Pain and praise can coexist. In the midst of your pain he gives you resurrection power to overcome.” I love that. I need to know that God will never forsake me.

How does this message encourage you today?

PRAYER

May we know that as the Father and the Son are eternally one, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus, our Lord (Rom 8:38-39). We will never be forsaken (Heb 13:5).

---

How sweet the sound; Lord God Almighty; I shall not want; Hallowed by thy name

Thank you, Pastor Libin Abraham, for helping cement this amazing truth in my soul. For more, listen to his sermon Was Jesus Forsaken?.