From Pain to Praise

We are all familiar with the opening lines of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me?” David, the human author of these words, is expressing an intense, deep pain – the pain of being abandoned by God. 

What is surprising about these painful questions is that they co-exist in the same Psalm as the verse which proclaims: God “has not despised or disdained the suffering of the afflicted one, he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.” (v.24) And then, a few lines later, David writes: “They will proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn – for he has done it.” (v.31)

How does the profound pain expressed at the beginning of the psalm end up in the praise that dominates the end of the psalm? How can David speak about God as far off and silent, yet near and not hidden? How do we make sense of the psalm´s radical change from an abandoned, lonely man, to all the families of the earth praising God for their salvation? 

A tension lies behind this psalm – a tension that is not resolved within the psalm. How can one feel completely abandoned, but also have the hope that God is near and will hear his cry for help? 

Of course, Jesus is the answer to the tension of Psalm 22. Jesus took on the pain and anguish of the first part of the psalm. He hung on the cross, bloody and exposed and mocked – and God the Father turned his face away. Jesus, the Righteous One, cried out to His Father and there was only silence. He was left alone in his pain. 

Why? To take upon himself the very punishment we deserved. We rebels turned our faces away from God and refused to answer when He called. So Jesus stepped in and took our place on the God-forsaken cross that was our just punishment.

This is the reason we rejoice and the reason Psalm 22 ends in worldwide praise. It is because Jesus took the pain of sin´s punishment and then, incredibly, he rose victorious and vindicated after three days. His body was broken, as Psalm 22 describes so vividly, and then restored to newness of life, which gives us the hope that the same can happen to us. 

We may feel abandoned and lonely. It may seem as though heaven has shut its doors and God has walked away. But though that feeling may last for a moment, it will not last forever. Pain will give way to praise just as surely as the grave gave way to resurrection.