Praying Through Our Pain "Psalms" [2 of 5] Tim Mackie (The Bible Project) 5/26/2013

so the reading for tonight is from psalm 22 my god my god why have you forsaken me why are you so far from saving me so far from my cries of anguish my god i cry out by day but you do not answer by night but i find no rest yet you are enthroned as the holy one you are the one israel praises in you our ancestors put their trust they trusted and delivered them to you they cried out and were saved and you they trusted and were not put to shame but i am a worm and not a man scorned by everyone despised by the people all who see me mock me they hurl insults shaking their heads he trusts in the lord they say let the lord rescue him let him deliver him since he delights in him yet you brought me out of the womb you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast from a birth i was cast on you from my mother's womb you have been my god do not be far from me for trouble is near and there is no one to help many bulls surround me strong bowls of the shawn encircle me roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me i am poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint my heart has turned to wax it has melted within me my mouth is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth you lay me in the dust of death dogs surround me a pack of villains encircles me they pierce my hands and my feet all my bones are on display people stare and gloat over me they divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment but you lord do not be far from me you are my strength come quickly to help me deliver me from the sword my precious life from the power of the dogs rescue me from the mouth of the lions save me from the horns of the wild oxen i will declare your name to my people in the assembly i will praise you you who fear the lord praise him all you descendants of jacob honor him revere him all you descendants of israel for he has not despised or sco or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help from you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly before those who fear you i will fulfill my vows the poor will eat and be satisfied those who seek the lord will praise him may your hearts live forever 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 all the rich of the earth will feast and worship all who go down to the dust will kneel before him those who cannot keep themselves alive posterity will serve him future generations will be told about the lord they will proclaim his righteousness declaring to a people yet unborn he has done it this is the word of the lord all right hey you guys how you doing good good happy uh memorial day weekend that's rad okay moving on uh it's good to have you guys here tonight um we are continuing uh our series uh in the book of psalms the language of prayer and uh remember how's it going for you guys those of you doing the 90-day pray through the book of psalms how's that going for you i'm seeing nods of affirmation yeah yeah awesome um you already have and are going to continue to come across uh psalms that you finish and you're like really love that part and what i have no idea what that part was about and i think psalm 22 is is one of those it's actually one of the more well-known psalms because the first line of this prayer is a line that jesus took on his lips as he hung on the cross but the rest of what's going in the psalm we're not kind of sure what to do with a lot of that and so uh remember what the main theme that we're highlighting as we go through is one trying to become a community right a church community of people who are fostering cultivating the habit of prayer of a daily connection with god but also that that's a learned skill you don't just like automatically know how to do that and so the book of psalms has exists within the scriptures to teach us how to pray and they give pride of place to uh to our emotions in our prayer which is kind of why we put together a 90-day prayer journal if by the way you haven't taken one of these 90-day prayer journals today's day 13 or 14 depending on if you start on monday or sunday two weeks ago but they're free at the back and i really encourage you to take one and to join us on on the daily the daily kind of prayer through the book of psalms these prayers give pride of place to our emotions in our prayer life and that some of us are like gonna run through the door because of that because of whatever your family of origins or you're about as emotional as a rock you know that's just how you are and others of you are really excited about that but you know that you're kind of prone to being way over emotional and so remember i won't go into detail but last week we kind of set the playing field the psalms they don't stuff or deny our emotions in our journey of following christ but at the same time they don't show us prayers that are simply overtaken or driven by emotion they take this middle way that that is the way most of us did not grow up with which is praying through our emotions it's about an intentional thoughtful reflective discovering the sources of what we're feeling and and reminding ourselves of god's character and who we are and just pouring out the whole mess in god's presence and so tonight we're we're exploring psalm 22 and we're exploring what it means to pray through our pain and our grief and our suffering if you if if you have been a christian for very long uh you almost certainly have had to face the contradiction what i call it the great contradiction what i think is one of the most kind of formidable challenges to belief in god and belief in in jesus and it's both a theology issue but it's also a very personal issue and and that contradiction is this and we're going to explore how david prays through it tonight through psalm 22. the contradiction is that we say we believe and we gather weekly and we gather in homes and one-on-one and in terms of our own uh beliefs and convictions if you're christian we believe that god is good that he's real and that he's present and that his will and purposes for our world are to heal and to save and that he loves the world and everyone in it we hold that belief and we hold it not just because not just because we think it's a nice thing to believe we we hold it because we can point to examples of god's actions in history where he demonstrated his goodness and his care and so as we're going to see in the psalm here for for the israelites and in the old testament that main action of god's care and goodness was the exodus redeeming the slaves israelite slaves out of egypt he showed his mercy he answered their prayers and so on and if i'm a christian for foremost i can point to jesus right god god's action in entering human history and living and dying and being raised for us right that's why i believe any of this in the first place is because there's a whole bunch of eyewitness testimony that this man lived and died and said and did these things and so i hold that really firmly right here and i can point to jesus and i can say here's how i know that god is involved in that he acted to save so i have that in one hand but in the other hand you you read the newspaper or whatever actually nobody reads newspaper anymore you read msnbc or whatever new york times whatever on your phone or something and you just look at the you look at the tragedy and the horror of human history and and of the chaos of the majority of humanity's just daily life and the pain and and you if you haven't been there yet you will come there you reflect on your own experiences of pain and suffering and how do those the two of those go together it's what i call the great contradiction and for many people when when hardship and tragedy strikes strikes their lives they either don't know how to hold on to this belief in god's goodness or they begin to question it they let it go all together or they alter their view of of god and he's got some absentee distant landlord or whatever because where was god in my pain and in my suffering and if you haven't felt this contradiction yet in your own journey of being christian just give it some time give it some time you'll eventually be there because this isn't just a theology problem this is part of the human experience in living in a broken world and so the good news is that the book of psalms doesn't try and solve this intellectually for us in fact the bible for the most part doesn't actually tell us about why or how evil enter into the world what the bible is trying to tell us is what god is doing about the problem of evil and suffering in human in human history and the psalms are not trying to give us a theology answer what the psalms are giving us language for how do you pray through that contradiction how do you pray through it and the way you do it is about one-third almost 50 of the prayers in 150 prayers in the book of psalms almost 50 of them are prayers that are generated out of pain and anguish of this contradiction and the way that these prayers these biblical prayers move through it is through lament and protest through lament and protest you don't deny that you feel this way that you feel abandoned by god but at the same time you don't just sell the farm and ditch the whole thing you pray through it what does that look like what does it mean to lament and and to protest and that's what that's what psalm 22 is all about um psalm 22 is kind of long and uh but we're going to we're going to move right through it and you already have it open most of you i want to make just first a big picture kind of observation about psalm 22 that i think is very powerful about what what does it mean to lament and protest as a way of praying through our tragedies and our pain and our grief what does that even mean in the first place and then we're gonna we're gonna move through i think when most of us i think our default mode of prayer when there's a crisis there's something super difficult hardship enters our life i think the prayer kind of mode that most of us get into at least at least myself and i've asked others is kind of this it's i could just call it request mode which is the uh anne lamotte she says she prays three kinds of you guys that know and and lamont is great kind of essay nonfiction writer and she says she has three prayers basically which is thank you thank you thank you i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry or help me help me help me and uh and so essentially i think the mode that most of us get into when hardship hits is help me help me help me right which is just god would you provide a solution give relief send this resource that i need answer this prayer we get into request mode and here's what's super interesting about all of the prayers of lament in the book of psalms is that they do request they do request there are requests here in psalm 22 but it is it is a really small portion of the prayer look at psalm 22 with me just look at the first line my god my god why have you forsaken me is that a request it's a question isn't it but it's not a request it's not a request verse two my god i cry out by day but you're not answering that's not a request it's a statement isn't it verse 3 you're enthroned as the holy one you are the one israel praises and ancestors put their trust in you so we're still not not requesting yet verse 6 i am a worm and not a man. that's a sad self-description but that's still not still not a request is it verse 9 you brought me out of the womb verse 12 many strong bulls surround me strong bowls of bashan still not requesting still verse 14 i'm poured out like water verse 16. dogs are surrounding me verse 18 they're dividing my clothes like wha do you see this this huge majority of this prayer and there's no request it's it's anguished detailed description of what's happening to me and how i feel about it then verse 19 but you lord here come the requests and they're quite short and it's just a small part of the prayer don't be far from me you're my strength come quickly verse 20 deliver me verse 21 rescue me save me now just just stop right there okay this kind of i'd never really even thought about this until it was pointed out to me the i think the assumption that we have when when hardship comes is god already knows what's happening he already knows how i feel what i need to do is tell him exactly what he's supposed to do about it that's the assumption i said we that we are and you see this psalm has precisely the opposite assumption the assumption in this prayer is god knows exactly what to do deliver me save me rescue me help me sorry right so god doesn't need help knowing what he needs to do the majority of this prayer is taken up with describing what's happening to me and how i feel about it do you see that here this is the total opposite of the mode that most of us get into and this this is the nature of biblical lament and protest that was awesome and it might have been josh white so he turned 40 yesterday josh white turned 40 yesterday his birthday weekend so that's why he's not here and he also got his new refurbished motorcycle it might have been him i don't know intentionally sorry anyhow um what was i saying i was saying something um i was talking about oh yes yes the disproportion right so so in other words we get into request mode we think god needs help knowing what to do he already knows he already knows what's happening and he already knows how i feel about it but the psalm the biblical prayers do just the opposite they assume what actually god is most interested in hearing is is me describing how i'm processing all of what's happening to me and how it's making me feel do you see it i mean you can just see it now in the prayer 18 verses of detailed description of what's happening and how i feel about it three short verses of request request and so i just want to camp out here for a few more moments because i think this is this gives us an insight that we don't actually know how to lament very well we don't know how to pray very well in times of suffering and of hardship these psalms are here to teach us how to do that and they do it primarily through lament and protest now when i say the word protest a whole bunch of kind of ideas come into our heads that i don't think are helpful for us we think of protests and we think of you know there's one every weekend somewhere in downtown portland for different causes or whatever we think maybe of of anger or whatever and that's anger may or may not play a part in it but protest is is a different category here here in these prayers in the book of psalms and the best thing i can do is really just show you a kind of a contemporary example of it but both i'm using it because it's a really good example of lament and protest two it's funny which is important because this is a really heavy topic and the rest of the messages i'm not don't really have very many jokes because it's about suffering and and anguish um how many of you have uh have heard of uh the letter two continental airlines from the passenger in seat 29e anybody the letter from seat 29e i'm really curious oh awesome all right good so it was viral on the on the interweb but you know this was it was about five or six years ago or whatever the letter from c 29 is actual passenger complaint uh sent in uh from it was a flight from sweden to houston international from uh the person c 29e dear dear continental airlines this is this is amazing amazing i'm disgusted as i write this note to you about the miserable experience i'm having sitting in seat 29e on one of your aircrafts as you may know this seat is situated directly across from the lavatory so close that i can reach out my left arm and touch the door all of my senses are being tortured simultaneously it's difficult to say what the worst part of sitting in 2090 really is question mark your spelling's not great by the way is it the stench of the sanitation fluid that is blown all over my body every 60 seconds when the door opens is it the whoosh of the constant flushing or is it the passengers and note my edit here bottoms bottoms you can guess what you put in there the passengers bottoms that seem to fit into my personal space like a pornographic jigsaw puzzle this gets better it's brilliant i i constructed a stink shield by shoving one end of a blanket into the overhead compartment while effective in blocking at least some of the smell and offering a bit of privacy the bottom on my body factor has increased as without my evil glare passengers feel free to lean up against what they think must be some kind of blanketed wall the next bottom that touches my shoulder will be the last [Laughter] i know it gets better i'm picturing a boardroom full of executives giving props to the young promising engineer that figured out how to squeeze an additional row of seats onto this plane by putting them next to the lavatory as illustrated here i would like to flush his head in the toilet that i am close enough to touch and taste from my seat it gets better putting a seat here was a very bad idea i just heard a man groan in there and then i had to delete entirely what what follows next depiction of man's bottom in my face worse yet i've paid over four hundred dollars for the honor of sitting sitting in the seat he's okay he brings it home brings it home here does your company give refunds i would like to go back where i came from and start over c-29e could only be worse if it was located inside the bathroom i wonder if my clothing will retain the sanitizing oh there what about my hair i feel like i'm i feel like i'm bathing in a toilet bowl of blue liquid and there is no man in the little boat to save me i'm filled with a deep hatred for your plane designer and a general disease that may last for hours we are finally descending soon i will be able to tear down the stink shields but the scars will remain i suggest you initiate immediate removal of this seat from all of your crafts just remove it and leave the smoldering brown hole empty a good place for sturdy non-absorbing luggage maybe but not for human cargo you know what i mean you ha you haven't lived until you've read the letter from seat 29e right now this is brilliant in so many ways and you might what on earth does this have to do with psalm 22. actually it actually is remarkably similar to psalm 22 in the structure did you see it right there he only every line of that was aimed at making a request right the whole thing what's the request he actually only said it in one line at the end just remove it just remove the seed but but the entire letter is aimed at getting a response do you see this here in other words he could have just said request remove it remove it remove it that wouldn't be nearly as effective or funny right but once you see he feels like he's drowning in the toilet and there's no little lifeboat to save him or something is this va this is really quite vivid metaphor right right so it's almost poetic and so it's remarkably like psalm 22. the majority of it is an exploration of what is happening the in anguish detail what's happening and how he feels about it and so obviously if this is full of irony and sarcasm that's why that's why we're all laughing but it's such a good example we don't know how to do this very well right and and so we in this case he turns to humor to know how to do it but seriously we don't know how to pray through our grief we assume god doesn't all i can think is i assume god doesn't want to hear it that he doesn't care and so i'm just going to tell him what i think he should do when apparently what he's really interested in is hearing what i'm feeling and what i'm processing this is precisely what's happening in psalm 22. so there you go i know i made your sides hurt and now we're not going to laugh anymore because this is really this is really intense but just kind of ask yourself i mean i would even encourage you just get yourself into a mindset of a time of where you had to face the contradiction and ask yourself how you could have prayed some of you are right now in your life in the middle of that contradiction what would it look like to pray a prayer like that hopefully with not as much dry sarcasm but but at least with honesty and with heart let's kind of let's dive in we're going to work through the through david's prayer here and see how he prays through his uh his grief for a little note here at the beginning here that's part of this prayer for the director of music to the tune of the dough of the dawn or the dough of the morning a psalm of david now most of us we kind of read right over these sometimes you get really important information like last week we heard about when david prayed psalm 3 while he was fleeing from his son absalom this is important for some other reasons first of all do you guys know the tune the dough of the morning yeah neither do i and neither does anybody right so but this was this is talking about the melody to which this prayer was played in israel's worship in the temple and it was for a director of music to know like hey you know do this melody when you when you do this song now that just tells us something really important right there in other words this originally was a psalm of david generated out of as we're going to see a very anguish difficult life experience we don't know what that experience was and so david's description of how he feels and what's happening to him is actually very open-ended it's nowhere as specific as the letter from c 29a and so all of a sudden david's prayer passed into the prayer life of his people and there's a thousand years separating david praying this prayer and and jesus taking it on his lips hanging on the cross and during that thousands of thousand years who knows how many countless thousands of israelites prayed this prayer in their time of anguish and and need and so what essentially this little note does is it opens up david's prayer it's not just about him and it's not just about jesus this prayer is for anybody who has ever felt abandoned by god he begins my god my god why have you forsaken me why are you so far from saving me so far from the cries of my anguish my god i'm crying out day you don't answer i'm crying out by night i don't find any rest there's no description of the circumstances and so all of a sudden anybody who's ever felt that that that confusing sense of absence of god in your life this becomes your prayer immediately this is how he begins with how he feels but also a form of protest it's clearly if god were listening he would realize i've been crying out day and and night so this is not okay if god were really aware that i've been crying out day and and now he would answer immediately because god wouldn't tolerate that kind of thing in his world so you can see this there's emotional energy here why aren't you paying attention to me it's not angry protest because who's he praying to what's the very first words this is very important biblical lament and protest all it's based on relationship he's talking to my god he assumes that he's his god and that he cares and that makes this the sense of absence all the more painful he cries out my god he begins with this look appeal look at the next part of the prayer this is instructive we're going to move through it showing us what what it looks like to lament and to protest verse 3 he says you're enthroned as the holy one you're the one israel praises i mean and you our ancestors put their trust they trusted and you delivered them they cried out to you they were saved they trusted in you and we're not put to shame what's he doing right here just stop and think about this what's what mode of prayer is in he's not describing how he feels anymore what's he doing he's referring to how god has proven his faithfulness in the past there have been times in the past where people cried out to you and you totally responded and and just think for david if when he talks about our ancestors cried out to you and you saved them what story is supposed to be coming into your head it's like the main foundation story of the old testament of israel's salvation this is the story of the exodus they were in slavery oppressed they cried out to yahweh he sent them a deliverer saved them out of egypt and so in the in the midst of his it's like these contradictions these feelings he's saying i don't feel like you're present i don't see you anywhere to be found but i know that you have responded in the past and so this is a way of he's not doing self-talk here he's reminding god that god has been faithful in the past why why aren't you doing that same kind of thing right now that's a legitimate question it is you're not alone in asking that question and apparently god invites us to remind him of his past salvation when we feel the lack of that presence and salvation in our own lives let's keep going he says but i'm a worm i'm not a man he feels less than human isolated he says i'm scorned by everyone despised by people all who see me mock me they hurl insults shaking their heads they say he trusts in the lord let the lord rescue him let the lord deliver him since he he delights in him so he takes a deep dive down here into his isolation i mean really quite a deep dive and again you we get into the thing like course god already knows i feel like this no dude like verbalize it articulate it he's feeling deeply isolated those of you who have been in in periods this often happens um in situations of sickness or in death you lose a loved one and even even your best friends have a difficult time knowing how to talk to you have you guys know this experience or have had this right you're in the presence of someone who's experienced grief and tragedy even if you want to talk with him you don't know how tragedy is a very isolating experience even from people that care about you much less people in this case that are persecuting him and so on and so he just prays right through it he just pours it all out before god he doesn't stuff it he doesn't let him take it over let it take over him he just he prays right through it and then he he instantly moves even deeper versus zion he says you're the one who brought me out of the womb you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast from birth i was cast on you from my mother's womb you have been my god don't be far from me trouble is near there's no one here to help me these are some of the most unique uh descriptions of god actually in the whole bible god is depicted as a midwife right here do you see that you brought me out of the womb laid me at my mother's breast it's a very so he he knows that god's the author of his life he knows that god's responsible for existence he knows that god is so close to him and has been since his first breath and he depicts god as this midwife this strong maternal presence that's always been with him i know you care about me where are you where are you that's a that's as gut-wrenching as the letter from seat 29e is it's funny isn't it this is deeply personal and again i'm commenting along the way but some of i think some of us we're like this is uncomfortable for us we're like i don't want to talk to god like this but but there you go apparently it could be one of the most healthy things for your relationship with your creator is to just really articulate your grief and your emotions and your feelings let's keep going many bulls surround me strong bulls of bashan encircle me roaring lions that tear against their prey open their mouths wide against me he uh he didn't just go in a jungle safari okay that's not what just happened so um this is a very common metaphor uh in the psalms in particular and another biblical poetry to describe either circumstances that are very hostile or dangerous for you or people who are your opponents or enemies or whatever to describe them in terms of vicious animals so it seems kind of strange to us but this is super common in their culture and time so we these bulls and lions these are the most uncontrollable creatures that humans can think of the circumstances seem completely out of control which is what he goes on to say verse 14 through these metaphors he says it's like i'm poured out like water all my bones are out of joint like it's like i'm falling apart no coherence and cohesion in my mind or heart my heart's turned to wax it's melted within me image of a fear my mouth is dried up like a potsherd my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth you lay me in the dust of death it's like this image of him actually being forced down into the dirt he has no vitality no vigor he's laying in the dirt no energy he's a he's dry no vigor no vitality dogs surround me dogs are scavengers in their culture in time that not too many people had pet dogs back then they're wild packs that scavenge and so here is this dead man lying in the desert dogs surround me a pack of villains encircles me they pierce my hands and and my feet some of your translations have they they hack off or they chop at my hands and my feet i can count all my bones people stare and gloat at me they divide my clothes among them they cast lots for my garment so he's in this place of isolation and pain and grief he feels like he's dying he can't hold it together and what the people around him do they close in to take advantage of him right they're gambling for his possessions and so on he feels completely isolated and alone there you go how you guys doing that is so intense it's so intense it's only now that he moves into request mode and quite briefly he just says you lord don't be far you are my strength come quickly to help me deliver me from the sword my precious life from the power of the dogs rescue me from the mouth of the lion save me from the horns of the wild of the wild oxen and that's it that's his request he assumes that it's much more important to god and to himself that he really articulate what's happening to him and his grief and his pain this is so instructive for us and i i i don't know how to do this very well and i'm a child of our culture just like all of you are i'm guessing most of you don't know how to do this very in fact we might even be kind of scandalized at like the raw boldness of talking to god in this way um one of the uh i think that kind of the more brilliant uh commentators i came up came across and talking about lament this lament kind of prayer that's a scholar her name's kathleen o'connor i'm just going to read you her words because they're so powerful she says prayers of lament name what is wrong what is out of order in god's world and what keeps human beings from thriving in all their creative potential you can just see that he's protesting that this is happening to him and that this happening is happening in god's world simple acts of lament expose these conditions it names them it opens them up to grief and anger and makes them visible for remedy in its complaint and anger and grief lamentation protests conditions that prevent human thriving and this resistance may finally prepare the way for divine healing in other words and i'm not a psychologist by by any means but times of hardship and grief this isn't just like about therapy or something this is about being human whole human beings and how god's god's salvation heals the whole of us when we go through times of stress and tragedy and hardship and loss stuff happens inside of us that we don't get right things get misaligned and distorted within us that we don't even know how to name and it seems to me that the the biblical culture of prayer and lament this is this is god's way of inviting us to process this isn't therapy this is just biblical right that we're whole human beings and and not this is what's so brilliant this is in the bible you guys you know the thing so all of a sudden these human words to god become through the scriptures god's words to us about how to speak to god about our suffering he's inviting us to do this and to name what's wrong to draw attention to it and to hold that contradiction together in faith and to say i don't know how in this instance god's goodness and care connects with with the suffering and tragedy but it's really messing me up inside and i've got to talk about it i've got to name it this is biblical event and biblical protest it's not angry wallowing prayer it's being honest and pouring our hearts hearts out before god it's very powerful and what this would look like for you to do i don't know right because i don't know your story but this is what psalm 22 and the 50 other prayers that are like it in the book of psalms they invite us to do now something really important happens here right after verse 21 there's a whole shift in the in the prayer and maybe you noticed it when we read through it it turns from uh this lament and request and protest it turns from that all of a sudden to praise look at verse 22 it says all of a sudden i will declare your name to my people in the assembly i will praise you and like whoa what just what what happened so i thought this was he was in horrible circumstances here this is very common in these prayers and normally most certainly what happened is you know we can only speculate david composed parts of this prayer these are words that he said to god in his time of grief and anger and confusion and so on and pain but at some point he experienced deliverance he experienced resolution to this and so at least here essentially we're going to see the scene of what he did was he did what you're supposed to do when your prayers are answered you go to the assembly at the temple and you you share the story with other people so he says he goes to the temple to the assembly and i'm going to declare your name and praise god and here's what he's going to say imagine david standing in the temple after after this whole time has passed and he says all you who fear the lord praise him all you descendants of jacob honor him revere him you descendants of israel for he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one he hasn't hidden his face from him he's listened to his cry for help and so he had again addresses god then in the temple he says from you god from you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly before those who fear you i will fulfill my vows which usually involved offering an animal of sacrifice to thank god for delivering you and so he and normally for those kind of sacrifices you throw a big party what an awesome culture when your prayers are answered you slaughter like a goat and you have a huge party and you invite all your friends and you tell the story of god's faithfulness to you this is a part of lament and prayer in in these prayers is when you find an answer when there is resolution when you do discover god's grace and mercy or there's healing or whatever it is you don't just internalize that you throw a party you turn to god's people and you have a party and so he says the poor will eat and be satisfied those who seek the lord will praise him and may your hearts live forever i think this is actually like uh cheers you know this is they're actually at the feast and he's he's praising and thanking god you know bottoms up kind of thing we celebrate to celebrate what god has done in his story so again this is we don't do this very well and i don't think we even have a category for this do you how many of us have a practice in our prayer life of moments where we invite other people in our lives to celebrate moments of deliverance and answered prayer and coming through that dark night of the soul because actually what that assumes is for the is that you've actually invited other people into your struggle and into your journey of pain and grief and so on the fact that david this is very obviously very personal prayer but at some point he's invited other people the assembly into his story so that they can share in his grief and also share in his joy joy as well this is another part of lament as a community of jesus's followers it makes me think back a few months ago josh josh garros one of our elders he spoke on on community on our second pillar here and he it was quite profound what he what he shared his name you know when we do um this discover door of hope thing at the first sunday of every month it's a lot of newer people people who haven't been around very long and there's one theme that always comes up i'm trying to find community i'm it's hard i'm trying to meet people i'm trying to connect and it's difficult and especially for westerners the way we live and structure our lives like we're the most isolated individuals on the planet right for how we work but we don't know how to do this very well and one of the ways this is what josh shared is to to just initiate relationships and invite people into your story especially into your struggles and this has this has a way this has a way of uh bringing the threads of our stories together and all of a sudden you realize i'm not the only one asking this question i'm not the only one praying a prayer like psalm 22 there's lots of other people who are wondering where god is it's about uniting in those prayers together david ends the prayer verse 27 all the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the lord all the families of the nations will bow down before him for dominion belongs to the lord he rules over the nations all the rich of the earth will feast and worship all who go down to the dust will kneel before him even those who can't keep themselves alive and this is the part of psalm 22 where we're like okay that's cool how do what does that have to do with anything at this point in the prayer here's what i think what's happening this is really profound it's as if david he thinks of his own story of this tragedy in his life where he called out to god and he just he had to lament and pray through those emotions and those feelings and at some point he met he met the answer to those prayers and he invited other people in and he shared in the celebration of god's mercy and grace that he experienced in his life and it's almost here like at the end of this prayer he sees that story of what he went through as just a small a small little example of the story god is weaving in in the whole of his world as he as he meets the evil and the suffering and the brokenness of our world with his mercy and salvation in people's lives it's as if his story reminds him of the big story that god has set on redeeming and rescuing his whole world and so he ends by saying this thing that i experience of being able to praise god on the other side of my suffering he sees he sees that all creation is headed towards this praise on the other side of suffering and all nations will come and will worship for he's the king the rich of the earth even those who are going to the dust this is the image of death remember earlier he said i'm in the dust of death he apparently has the idea that god's commitment and his his mercy his commitment to our world even reaches beyond the power of death that even death can't thwart god's ultimate purposes to save and to heal his people and so he ends by saying posterity will serve him future generations will be told about the lord they will proclaim his righteousness they'll declare it to a people yet unborn because he has done it he envisions like this unending gathering of all generations all in their stories of suffering and pain and how god met them and and delivered them just going on on and on ad infinitum and their psalm 22. how you guys doing go back to the first line here my guess is that the second half of the poem didn't resonate as deeply as the first and that might be for a number of reasons uh some of us might be sitting in the middle of that contradiction in our lives and we have no idea how or when god is going to bring his deliverance so that i could even invite friends over and have a party you know some some of you have people that you care about deeply who are in the midst of this cry of anguish and they don't see god's faithfulness at work and their story they don't see their prayers answered and so what do you do right what do you what do you do if you head to your deathbed never being able to make it to the second half of the psalm what do you do and this is where i think the importance of jesus quoting this psalm as he hangs on the cross where it becomes so important to us so there's something very mysterious and crazy going on when you read the stories of jesus crucifixion scene in particular there are over 20 places where the gospel authors or the writers draw attention to or use language or draw connections between what's happening to jesus on the cross and little details in this prayer about the the hacking out or the piercing of hands and feet about the gambling over the clothing about the insults that people yelled at jesus that were very similar to the language of psalm 22 and so on and the fact that jesus took the words of this very psalm on his lips so what's hap what's happening right there and some of us we think well that's crazy you know unity of all the new testaments and predictive prophecy and so on and yeah that's totally cool right but psalm 22 isn't actually predicting anything is it right you read isaiah and there's clearly like a messiah is going to come the king he's going to rescue the world and this kind of thing psalm 22 isn't it's a prayer of lament it's a prayer of lament and it's david's prayer but it became the kind of prayer that was so powerful because it so just nailed what's going on inside of us it became the prayer of thousands of others countless thousands of others after david to pray through their times of suffering and and so what jesus is doing this is so powerful what is what jesus is doing is he is taking up the suffering both of his great ancestor david but of all the thousands that have prayed this prayer after david but before him it's as if he is he is itself identifying with the suffering of humanity and so what what the great paradox of jesus saying my god my god why have you forsaken me is that on the cross god becomes god forsaken he doesn't just like sympathize with human suffering he actually self-identifies with it by entering into it and so what this creates is a space for you and i as christians to pray the first half of this prayer because we may never see the the deliverance that we pray for this side of jesus return in the red and the resurrection and the new creation we may never see the full answer to those prayers and those anguished prayers that that you might even pray more passionately now because of the first half of psalm 22. but jesus taking this prayer on his lips all of a sudden gives me gives me an anchor to hold on to because god did not despise or scorn the suffering of that afflicted one did he god did not hide his face ultimately from jesus jesus is god entering into our suffering our anguish so that he can conquer and heal heal it by his love i may never experience the second part of psalm 22 but jesus did and as i make my confession of faith as a follower of jesus if i put my trust in him i just hang on to him for dear life so that what was true of him in his resurrection may become true of me one day and i may experience that now i may experience that later i may experience that in the new creation i have no idea but what's most important in this psalm is it's the journey this is david's prayer this was jesus prayer and this is meant to be our prayer too as we look in faith to the fulfillment of god's promises and we can point to the life and the death and the resurrection of jesus as the one as the one who ultimately was delivered out of the suffering and death that you and i are in the thick of and so man i seriously this is so heavy and i'm glad we had a good laugh at the beginning but uh you know we have uh just as we gather every sunday we have this time just this block of time you guys for quietness for prayer for worship a chance to to whether it's by yourself or with whoever you came with to come to the table and take the bread and the cup and and in that moment we're actually we're connecting with jesus with these symbols that speak of the moment that he cried cried out this prayer where he identified with me and entered into my suffering with me and so some of you it might be your own story where you're in the middle of that pain and grief and wrestling with that contradiction you might have a loved one or someone you care about who's right there and so man just take advantage of this time sit with psalm 22 in front of you perhaps and allow yourself to go there you know allow yourself to pray in a way that you never have before that might make you feel a bit uncomfortable but that god's inviting you to because he cares he cares and he doesn't just care he has actually done something about it in jesus his life is death and resurrection so i'm going to close us in a word of prayer and i just encourage you to be open to what god might want to speak to you through psalm 22 as we as we go on you

Channel: Bible Nerds & Tim Mackie Fans

Views: 2,526

Rating: 4.8974357 out of 5

Keywords: Tim Mackie, Bible Project

Id: gSaF7Hus1Ps

Length: 52min 54sec (3174 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 07 2021