Sunday 08 • 12 • 18

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me? From the words of my groaning. Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. Yet you are holy and enthroned on the praises of Israel. In you, our fathers trusted, they trusted, and you delivered them. To you, they cried and were rescued. In you, they trusted and were not put to shame. But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, for he delights in him. Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breasts. On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother's womb you have been God, but not far from me, for trouble is near and there is none to help. Many bulls encompass me. Strong bulls of Bashan surround me. They open wide their mouths at me like a ravening and roaring lion. I am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs encompass me, a company of evildoers encircles me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. But you, O Lord, do not be far off. O you, my help, come quickly to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog. Save me from the mouth of the lion. You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen. I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him and stand in awe of him. All you offspring of Israel, for he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. And he has not hidden his face from him, but he has heard when he cried to him. From you comes my praise and the great congregation. My vows I will perform before those who fear him. The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied. Those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May the hearts live forever. May your hearts live forever. All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you. For the kingship belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship. Before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive. Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn that he has done it. — Psalm 22

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Thank you, Clayton. Good morning. It's good to be back with y'all here today and to lead us all into better understanding of the gospel by coming to God and his word.

Let me ask you a question. It's an important one. Were you team Yanny or team Laurel? Some of y'all know what I'm talking about. This was taking over the whole social media world a few months back. This little audio clip that if you listen to it, some of you thought it said Yanny, Yanny, Yanny. Another of you should listen to it and knew that it said Laurel, Laurel, Laurel. And it was weird how you could be listening to the exact same thing but have two completely different experiences of what it was saying. And the correct answer was Yanny. I'm clearly on that team. But actually what happens is as you begin to listen to it, if you know that there's other people that hear Laurel, you can begin to hear how they hear that. And that happened to me so that I could begin to hear Yanny but kind of refocus and all of a sudden hear Laurel.

Psalm 22: Multiple Voices

You know, today's psalm is kind of like that. Today's psalm is a psalm that some people look at and hear one voice. They hear the voice of David. They hear the voice of David expressing out his suffering and the hardship of the life that he's experiencing at this time. But then there's other people that look at this psalm and they hear a different voice. They hear the voice of Jesus. They see in this Psalm things that resonate with them from what Jesus' experience on the cross could look like.

So some people take this Psalm and say, this is clearly a prophecy. It has nothing to do with David. It's all about Jesus. But the other scholars say, hey, wait a second. This Psalm says nothing about being a prophecy. This is clearly a Psalm of David. It's about him.

But the beautiful thing about this Psalm is that it's not one or the other, but that both are true. Because in this psalm we have David expressing out his very real experience of suffering and what it was like for him at this time.

But we also see in this psalm words of truth that Jesus took and embraced for himself. He owned this Psalm even though he didn't write it—David did. He owned this Psalm knowing that these words were true for him too.

And so today, we have the opportunity to come into this psalm and, through this psalm, see both perspectives. And through this psalm, ultimately come to understand suffering better. But even more than that, and this is my main hope, to understand Jesus' suffering in the midst of the cross.

And so our outline for today—the thing that I hope we walk away with—is this: Jesus embraces suffering for us. Jesus embraces suffering for us.

But before we begin to dive into this psalm, I'm gonna pause and ask God that he would help us to understand his words as he's written them. Let us pray.

Our Lord and our God, we thank you that you are a God who knows our needs—knows that we need you to teach us, that we need you to help our minds to comprehend the depths and the riches of the glories that are found in the cross of Christ. Grow our hearts through your word and by your spirit, we pray. For Jesus' sake, amen.

Jesus Embraces This Psalm

First, let's look at how Jesus embraces this Psalm. I wonder if when Clayton read this for you, you felt a sense of familiarity with this Psalm. I wonder if you've never read this Psalm, but as it was being read, you thought, "That sounds interesting" or "That seems familiar. I remember hearing that phrase." I wouldn't be surprised that was the case, because this Psalm is used incredibly frequently by the gospel writers. In fact, no other Psalm is referenced as much by the gospel writers as this very Psalm.

The gospel writers saw this Psalm as one that perfectly captures the essence of what Jesus did on the cross—that it resonated so much with what his work was. In fact, many people in the early church would go to the Psalm in that same way, and one early church father even called this Psalm the fifth gospel because it seemed to so much reflect the work of Jesus on the cross.

And it's understandable how they could see that, because there are so many points of connection between what we see in this Psalm and what we see in the work of Jesus on the cross.

We see it in things like verse seven. There, the Psalmist is speaking about how he's experiencing people scorn him in the midst of his suffering. And so he says:

All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads. — Psalm 22:7

There he sees people shaking their heads at his suffering. And Matthew and Mark both take that same phrase—"they wag their heads"—and use it to describe the way that the Pharisees and onlookers looked at Jesus and mocked him and wagged their heads in scorn.

Or verse 18, the Psalmist is speaking about how his death is so imminent. He sees people dividing up his possessions, and so he says:

They divide my garments among them and for my clothing, they cast lots. — Psalm 22:18

All four gospel writers say that this very thing happened to Jesus. What was an image for the Psalmist was reality for Jesus—that literally people cast lots for his clothing. And John says that was to fulfill this scripture.

In verses 11 through 17, the Psalmist begins to express the physical suffering that he's going through. Some commentators say it sounds like he's just incredibly sick, but other commentators look at the words and the phrases that are used and say, "No, this isn't just sickness that he's talking about." The phrases that he uses are deeper than just feeling sick. These are phrases used of a public execution.

Now, this Psalm tells us in the subscription that this is a Psalm of David—a Psalm that King David wrote. And we know that he was never led publicly to execution. And so he's using that sense of feeling like he's being put forward to be killed to express the depth of his suffering. And of course, that is what Jesus actually went through. It wasn't just an image, but it was life. He was being put forward—the King who was being publicly executed.

And so many of the phrases that are used by the Psalmist to give a sense of his suffering are phrases that are hauntingly close to what you would expect in a crucifixion that had not been invented when this Psalm was written. Phrases like verse 14:

My bones are out of joint — Psalm 22:14

Just as in a crucifixion, your bones are pulled apart as your weight pulls you down. We're talking about being drained of strength. "My tongue sticking to the roof of my mouth out of thirst." Having pierced hands and feet. Having people stare and gloat. All these images the Psalmist used hauntingly seemed to point forward to what life was like for Jesus on the cross.

And so the gospel writers saw in Jesus's death that this Psalm seemed to come to life before them.

It would be easy to say that the gospel writers took this Psalm and Jesus's death and made his death look like this Psalm—that they just came up with this out of thin air. But that's not what happened. It wasn't that they thought this would be a neat thing to do. Jesus told them, "No, this Psalm is what I want you to see to help you understand my death." We see this in the way that Jesus himself embraced this Psalm.

In verse one, the Psalmist says:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? — Psalm 22:1

Many of you may know that that's one of the words of Jesus from the cross. When he was on the cross, he cries out that very phrase. And in calling out that verse, what he was doing was not just expressing in the moment that little thought. He was doing a practice of the rabbis, the teachers of scripture in that day. He was bringing to the attention of his people the whole Psalm by quoting the first verse. By quoting that first verse, Jesus is claiming this Psalm as something that should be in the minds of the people that are there.

It's interesting the way that he may have come up with this Psalm as the one that he wanted them to focus on. We don't know exactly, but we do know this: the first mention of the Psalm in connection with Jesus and his crucifixion wasn't Jesus himself. The Pharisees, when they saw Jesus up on the cross and were wagging their heads in scorn, quoted this Psalm to Jesus. They say to him:

He trusts in the Lord. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him if he is the son of God. — Psalm 22:8

The Pharisees put in a mocking way on Jesus this Psalm. And how does Jesus respond? He says, "Yes, you are right. Thank you. That Psalm encapsulates what I'm experiencing." He takes their scornful reference to the Psalm and says, "No, I want you to think on that Psalm. I want you to dwell on that Psalm because that Psalm explains my life. That Psalm explains my suffering." And so after they say that to him in a mocking way, he cries out in response: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" He says that Psalm is right on. That's my life.

Do you ever wonder what was on Jesus's mind as he was on the cross? As he was undergoing the pain of the agony, the crucifixion, what he would try to put into his mind to keep his focus, to keep his sanity? We don't know for sure, but the way that it seems, what many people say, is that it was this Psalm that Jesus held onto in those moments. He was reflecting on it, meditating on it, praying this Psalm, bringing it deep into his soul because this Psalm seems to make the most sense of his suffering, makes the most sense of his life, makes the most sense of his pain. This Psalm would give voice to his suffering and help him to understand it. And so from the cross, he cries it out: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" And there we begin to get a window into what was the suffering of Jesus on the cross.

That phrase, "My God, my God," is a powerful phrase. It's a powerful phrase of an intimate relationship between the Psalmist and his God. We see repetition when he says it twice. That's a repetition of closeness. Like when Jesus speaks to his good friend Martha and he says, "Martha, Martha." Or when he was saying something and wanted to make sure people saw the point, he'd say, "Verily, verily" or "Truly, truly, I say to you." Here again, the Psalmist uses repetition to drive home the point: "My God, my God." He feels a depth of intimacy in his connection with his God. This isn't some generic religious belief that he has. No, this is a deep, personal, intimate relationship that the Psalmist has with God.

So when the Psalmist says to God, "Why have you forsaken me?" there's a sense of personal betrayal that is in that question. It's not that he's feeling just ignored and slighted by the generic gods of the universe. He feels like the God who he was personally close to, intimate with, is leaving him in his greatest moment of need. And the Psalmist isn't saying when he says "I'm being forsaken" that he thinks he's alone, that God somehow has gone somewhere else. No, it's worse than that. If he thought that God wasn't there, why would he pray? But he prays because he knows that God is there. And he wonders why God is not doing anything.

Before we moved to Raleigh, we lived in Conway, South Carolina, and we had our children there. Our first child, Charlie, after he was born, we were the dutiful parents that wanted to do everything right. So our pediatrician gave us some parameters and said, "You know, here's one of the things that you may not know, but after your child gets sick to the stomach, they're going to be hungry. But don't give them anything to eat—it'll just make it worse."

So we told Charlie no food for twelve hours—just clear liquids. We wanted to honor that medical advice. Charlie got sick to his stomach, so we're like, alright, no food. But Charlie loved to eat. About an hour after he threw up, he began to feel hungry and he said, "Dad, dad, can I have something to eat? I'm hungry."

I said, "No, bud. Can't. Your tummy is sick. We gotta wait."

So he's like, "Well, then mom, mom, can you give me something to eat?"

She's like, "No, honey. We can't feed you. Your tummy's sick."

That didn't really satisfy him. He kept asking, "Can you give me something to eat? I'm hungry. Why can't I eat?" So we figured we gotta distract him. We put him in the baby stroller and we go outside to walk around the neighborhood, hoping that maybe this would help distract him from his hunger.

We're walking around the neighborhood and we come up to a house—it's Miss Karen's house. Miss Karen was a good friend of the family. She had two kids like we had two kids and we would bring our kids over and they'd play there. We'd often eat there. It was like a great second family for us. And Charlie saw Miss Karen in that way, almost like a second mom.

As we're coming up to Miss Karen's house, he sees the house. The door's closed. No one's in the yard. But he sees the house and at the top of his lungs, he yells out, "Miss Karen, will you give me some food? My parents won't feed me!"

We felt terrible. The other neighbors were like, "Who are these people? These Christians aren't feeding their kids."

But what was Charlie feeling in that moment? Did he feel like he was alone? No. He knew his parents were there. But his parents weren't caring for his need, and so he felt forsaken. And that's what the psalmist is expressing here.

It's not that he feels like God is gone. But it feels like God is there and God is doing nothing in the midst of this terrible pain. And that is a deeper wound, isn't it? To think that God is there but he's not acting.

So his cry—"My God, my God, why?"—is not a cry for explanation. It's a cry for action.

Oh my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest. — Psalm 22:2

He knows God's there. He knows God's ears are open. But he doesn't know why God won't do something. And he knows that God should. He says:

Yet you are holy. I know that you are good. You are enthroned on the praises of Israel. — Psalm 22:3

"I know that you hear stuff," he's saying. He knows that God has done this in the past for people. He says:

And you are fathers trusted. They trusted and you delivered them. To you, they cried and were rescued. In you, they trusted and were not put to shame. — Psalm 22:4-5

He knows that God is the kind of God that sees His people's need and He comes and He cares for them. But it's worse than that. It's not even that he has this general knowledge that God kind of takes care of His people. But he sees his whole life has been a life of God intimately caring for him in his most vulnerable moments.

Look down at verse nine:

Yet you are he who took me from the womb. You made me trust you at my mother's breast. — Psalm 22:9

There's this picture of God as the midwife who brings him into this world. God is the lactation consultant that helps him to learn how to feed. He says:

On you was I cast from my birth and from my mother's womb. You have been my God. — Psalm 22:10

His whole life has been built in this relationship of trust and God to care for him. In the midst of the vulnerability of birth, in the midst of the vulnerability of being inside of his mother's womb, God has always been there to care for him and to lead him into life. And here he is—death crushingly coming onto him—and God is silent.

Do you see how this makes this cry even more despairing? It's more despairing than just thinking that God wasn't there. It's worse than that. To know that He was there and not doing anything.

And that wasn't just true of the psalmist. That was even more deeply true of Jesus. Jesus used this Psalm because in some way it helps him to understand his pain and his agony of the cross. Because Jesus did not just feel alone and unnoticed on the cross. No. Jesus felt forsaken in this way. He knew that God was there. He knew that God saw his pain. He knew that God saw him in his agony and his suffering, and he knew that God was doing nothing. Nothing. And this is the agony of the cross—it's not the agony of the physical torment, but it's the emotional pain of the silence of God.

One commentator says, "Jesus doesn't cry out, 'My hands, my hands,' or 'My feet, my feet.' No, he cries out, 'My God, my God,' because that is where the deepest wound was."

And think about it—what would you pick in this terrible choice? Would you pick a kidney stone or a friend betraying you? Would you pick cancer or an unfaithful spouse? You would always pick the physical, right?

Because the physical pain hurts but the emotional is so much deeper. And that's the agony of Jesus on the cross. He felt the physical pain, yes, and it hurt but to not have your God who you've always trusted hear your cries and respond. To not have the one who had always been for Jesus his strength, not have the one who'd always been for Jesus his joy, to not have the one who for Jesus had always been the delight of his heart, respond to him in his greatest moment of need was a deep agony for Jesus.

The Psalmist gives words to what that agony was like for him in verse 14. He says:

I'm poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It is melted within my breast. — Psalm 22:14

That's what Jesus felt in the moment. His heart is full in love for God. His heart, his delight is the Father to do his will and here he is and yet God is silent and so it's like his heart melts away to feel alone from the Father's love.

God's Agony in the Crucifixion

But it's important as we think of Jesus's suffering to not just think about Jesus but also to think about God at this moment because it's easy to picture Jesus as having this pent up anger that he just unleashes on Jesus, to have this kind of angry response as he storms out his wrath on the Son. But that is not what it was like for God.

When Charlie was asking me to give him food, I only knew the kid for two years. He hadn't given me a birthday present yet. It was so hard for me to not give him food even though I knew that giving food to him would make him hurt. It was hard to see him suffer and not want to care. And I'm not a great dad. I hope I'm good. I'm not a great dad but I'm nothing compared to the goodness of the heavenly Father, right?

And the heavenly Father had to at this moment have the same depth of agony as the Son because there he is looking at his heart. There he is looking at his beloved Son. There he is looking at the one he has cherished, delighted, enjoyed, served, given to for all eternity and he hears him cry out, "Daddy, where are you?" And he has to stay silent. He has to stay silent. God's heart at this moment had to be broken to not respond to his Son's cry. With a broken heart, he had to stay silent.

He never stopped loving Jesus but he had to allow Jesus to suffer in this way because it was the only way. It was the only way for God to be holy. Because it was the only way that he could forgive us our sins. It was the only way where he didn't have to bring to us that kind of abandonment. It was the only way that his justice would be satisfied. The Father had to leave Jesus under his wrath, to leave him in the dark, to keep silent so that the wages of sin which is that very death can be paid for by Jesus and not us.

And this felt so deeply personal. The Psalmist in verse 15 says this:

You lay me in the dust of death. — Psalm 22:15

The psalmist knows that in some ways, God isn't just absently allowing this suffering to happen but in some way, he's complicit. You lay me in the dust of death. And for Jesus too, he knows that in some ways, God is complicit, that he is allowing this to happen, that he has been laid in the dust by the Father but I love the way that the Psalm puts it because there's a tenderness to being laid in the dust. God does not allow the suffering to happen uselessly but he only allows it to happen because this is the only way.

The Only Way

And listen, this is vital for us to hold on to. This is vital for us to see because it's easy for us to sometimes think that it's more noble to think that there's many paths up the mountain to God. It can seem noble and kind and generous to think that other people in other ways, by their kindness or their goodness, they can come to God in their own way. But do you know what you are saying when you're saying that?

What you are saying when you say that there's other ways to God is that this was useless. This was useless. Useless pain, useless suffering. Jesus, the night before he was betrayed, he knew what was going to happen and what does he pray?

God, if there be any other way, let there be any other way. — Matthew 26:39

Don't you think that God knowing the suffering that would come would have said, "Yes, hey, there is another way up the mountain. You don't have to do this. Let's go"? But there was no other way. This is the only way that we are saved. It's only through the cross of Christ that any may come to the Father. It's only through the cross of Jesus that we can be brought into the congregation of the righteous. It's only through Jesus's being abandoned by the goodness of God that we never have to experience that.

Through Jesus, Jesus suffered. He was willing to suffer because he knew that suffering was for us. And again, this Psalm spoke deeply to Jesus that hope. And this is the weird thing about the Psalm is that this Psalm goes from this sense of despair at the beginning to almost a hyperbolic triumph at the end.

It's bizarre that the Psalmist who starts out, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Who speaks about being laid in the dust, who speaks about himself as a skeleton on display. Goes on to speak such crazy, hopeful words like he does towards the end of the Psalm. Look down in verse 22.

I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. — Psalm 22:22

He sees himself moving out of this suffering, the suffering that he's still undergoing to this place where he's actually going to be helping others to praise the God who's been silent. And he doesn't just go on there to think about him encouraging those that are around him. He goes on to even greater hopes. In verse 27:

All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord and all the families of the nation shall worship before you. — Psalm 22:27

He sees his suffering ultimately leading people from other nations to come and see the glories of the God of Israel. And again, this is in the midst of deep, deep anguish. He has this great hope. But he goes on. He's even more hopeful. It's not even that in the moment, maybe some others will hear and come to know God. He sees his suffering somehow, someway impacting the future of the world. So, he says in verse 30:

Posterity shall serve him. It shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation. They shall proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn. — Psalm 22:30

This is a remarkable thing for this Psalmist to see the depth of how his suffering someway, somehow is going to be used to impact the rest of the world for generations to come. And Jesus on the cross took comfort in that. Jesus on the cross took these lines as a reminder to him that in the darkness of God's silence, there is the light of hope that God was still good. Because this Psalm told him so.

So what is the last thing that Jesus says on the cross? The last thing that he says is, "It is finished." And you know where that may come from? This very Psalm. The last line of the Psalm is that he has done it, but you can translate that multiple ways in the Hebrew. And one of the legitimate good ways to translate that is, "It is finished." It is done.

So that Jesus, as he is on the cross, doesn't shout out "he is finished" as a sign of exhaustion and giving up, but a sign of triumph, that the hope of this Psalm, that generations yet unborn. That people throughout the world will come to know and praise the God I love. Jesus in the midst of his suffering and the silence of God was obedient to follow after God because he had hope that somehow, someway, even though he didn't get it, God would use his suffering for good. In that way, he was thinking of us on the cross. Thinking of us who are the nations, who are the unborn in the time of Jesus, and the way that his suffering would be used to bring us into the congregation so that we too would praise God with him.

The Work of Christ

The author of Hebrews picks up this very theme in talking about the excellence of Christ in chapter two of Hebrews. He says:

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers saying, I will tell of your name to my brothers. In the midst of the congregation, I will sing your praise. — Hebrews 2:10-12

There the author of Hebrews draws in Psalm 22 and says, that Psalm is pointing to the way that Jesus's work is useful to take many and make them sons of glory. Jesus knew that he was laid in the dust by God. But why was he laid in the dust by God? It's so that verse 29 would be true for us:

The prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship before him shall bow down all who go down to the dust. Even the one who could not keep himself alive. — Psalm 22:29

That we who feel the dust will not stay in the dust but we will be brought into glory. Jesus on the cross as he was suffering knew that his heart was melting as he felt the silence but he was able to endure the silence. Why? Because he knew that it would enable us to say verse 26 is true:

The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied that those who seek him shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever. — Psalm 22:26

Your heart can live forever because his heart melted. Jesus endured his suffering because he knew that it was for you and for me, he knew that it was the way that we would be brought in to praise the God who was silent to Jesus.

Three Ways Forward

So, what do we do with this? Three ways that I would encourage you to take hold of the Psalm. The first is this: to see the wisdom of Jesus in the way that he used the Psalm. Jesus in the midst of God's silence knew that there was some way he could hear his voice. In the midst of God's silence knew that there was some way he could hear what his Father would say to him and it was with this Psalm. And so he went to this Psalm and he prayed it. He meditated it.

He brought this down deep to him to give him a sense of encouragement and hope. I know that all of us at times have that same sense of god, you're there but you're not doing anything. Why? It's great at those moments to use Psalms like this to at least feel understood and perhaps to have a sense of hope come out.

That we all walk the same path that Jesus walked. Now, all the people of God go through the path of suffering to glory. That all the people of God go through the path of humiliation to exaltation. That all the people of God go through the path of the cross to resurrection.

A second way is this Psalm can call us all to faith. Perhaps you are here today and you don't have faith in Jesus. Perhaps you've never understood why he had to die and perhaps you can see now a bit more clearly why he had to die and that it wasn't just some generic thing that he had to do but it was a death for you. This is your first time to hear that, grab it. Believe it. Jesus died for you. But for all of us, for all of us here, we all need to grab that.

Preparing for this sermon has exhausted me like no other. And it wasn't the academic aspects. It wasn't dealing with Masoretic pointing and Septuagint translations or none of that stuff. The hard part of preparing this sermon was for me to see the coldness of my heart towards the suffering of my Savior. And I'd find myself again and again going and beginning to weep as I reflected upon his work.

We sang this earlier and I think it so greatly captures what all of our hearts need. We all need to be dissolved by thy goodness. We all need to fall to the ground and weep for the praise, the mercy we found. All of us have hearts that so easily grow cold to the gospel but the gospel of Jesus Christ, the cross of Christ is the breath in our lungs as Christians. So we must come back and think again of the cross. Think again of the suffering. Think again of the way that God the Father and God the Son endured much agony so that we could know much glory.

Brothers and sisters, this to us is a gift. A gift that speaks to all of our sense of being forsaken.

No, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you.

This is a gift to all of us that speaks to us those words that many of us learned to sing when we were young.

Jesus loves you. This I know for the Bible tells us so.

Let's pray. Our Lord and our God, we thank you for the grace that is given to us in the gospel. Forgive us our stony hearts that think lightly of your suffering and sacrifice. And may it not lead us into useless sorrow but a sorrow that leads to joy that we could be so deeply loved. We pray this for Jesus' sake. Amen.