JANUARY 30
Psalm 22:1, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus death on the cross was no accident. It was not simply the bad end to a good man’s life, as some might suppose, but was according to the “definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). Centuries before Jesus’ death on the cross, David prophesied through his own experiences of the future suffering of Israel’s Messiah. Portions of this psalm are either quoted or alluded to some 24 times in the New Testament.
From the cross, Jesus spoke these poignant words. He had already endured suffering at the hands of men—betrayal, arrest, abandonment, false accusations, interrogation, beatings, humiliation, insults, pain, thirst, etc. But those were mere precursors to a degree of imaginable pain that would come at the hand of his Father. Isaiah wrote, “Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him, putting him to grief” (Isaiah 53:10). From eternity he’d experienced nothing but intimate fellowship with the Father, but in a moment of time He “who knew no sin” was made “to be sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He who was “without blemish or spot” was made to bear the ugly stain of a world’s transgressions (1 Peter 1:19). See Him there. Naked. All alone. Forsaken by man and God. “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatian 3:13). That’s Jesus Christ, the eternal Son, through whom all things have come into existence, bearing sin’s curse so that you might be set free from the penalty and power of sin.
Jesus uttered these prophetic words centuries after David wrote them. Now you stand two millenniums removed from Jesus’ sacrifice—the redemptive story of the ages. Consider again the high price Jesus paid to redeem you (1 Peter 1:18-19). Someday soon, you’ll be enjoined to a great choir in heaven singing “to the Lamb who was slain” is worthy of praise. But you need not wait until then. In Jesus’ sacrifice for your sins, you’ll always have reason enough to praise and thank Him.
“What thou, my Lord, hast suffered
Was all for sinners’ gain
Oh mine was the transgression
But thine the deadly pain”
—O Sacred Head, Now Wounded, Hans Leo Hassler and Johann Sebastian Bach
Application Question: You had a sin debt you owed to God. Jesus took that debt to himself and thereby canceled out yours. How grateful are you, even now, to Jesus for what He’s done for you? Find the hymn “O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” (online or in a hymnal) and prayerfully sing it to yourself.
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