Why Have You Forsake Me?

Yesterday was Maundy Thursday, which is the Thursday before Easter. It is the Thursday where many Christians around the world commemorate Christ's last night with His disciples and His suffering and death before the Sunday when we will celebrate His resurrection. At this time last year, I had the privilege of preaching at my church's Maundy Thursday service, and my text was Psalm 22. It might seem strange at first to use an Old Testament text to commemorate the suffering and death of Christ, but this text is a prophetic text--one that describes David's suffering in figurative terms which will be literal for Jesus. Here is a portion of the sermon:

It’s no accident, I think, that this psalm is followed by Ps. 23. It’s no accident that a psalm that expresses profound feelings of complete abandonment is follow by a psalm that emphasizes God’s presence even in the valley of the shadow of death. We can move from Ps. 22 straight into Ps. 23 because our Savior experienced the full punishment of hell that we deserved on the cross. Because He cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” when we feel forsaken, we can pray with utter confidence “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” What is described in Ps. 22 may feel like what we go through sometimes in our lives, but the last movement of the cross of Christ shows us that it is only a feeling because it was real for Jesus. And, the very last bar of the third movement of this psalm—“he has done it”—points us to the fulfillment of the very last bar of the final, fourth movement that Jesus wrote: “It is finished.”

If you would like to hear the rest of the sermon, you can listen to it here or read the transcript here. I pray that on this Good Friday, the Holy Spirit will use it to magnify Christ in your heart and mind to the glory of God.

By His Grace,
Taylor