Psalm 22 | Psalms Reflection
Psalm 22 — He Has Been Here Too “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” — Psalm 22:1 Few passages of Scripture bring human suffering and the suffering of Christ together as powerfully as Psalm 22. David begins with one of the most anguished prayers in the Bible. God seems distant. His cries appear unanswered. His enemies surround him. His strength is disappearing, and yet he continues to address the One who seems absent as “My God.” Centuries later, Jesus would take these words upon His o...
Psalm 22 — He Has Been Here Too
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” — Psalm 22:1
Few passages of Scripture bring human suffering and the suffering of Christ together as powerfully as Psalm 22.
David begins with one of the most anguished prayers in the Bible. God seems distant. His cries appear unanswered. His enemies surround him. His strength is disappearing, and yet he continues to address the One who seems absent as “My God.”
Centuries later, Jesus would take these words upon His own lips from the cross:
“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
— Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34
Psalm 22 therefore invites us into two stories at once. It is the lament of David in his suffering, but Christians have also long recognized its remarkable connection to the crucifixion of Jesus.
THE SHADOW OF THE CROSS
The parallels between Psalm 22 and the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion are striking.
David writes:
“All those who see Me ridicule Me; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, ‘He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him.’”
— Psalm 22:7–8
At Calvary, Jesus' enemies use remarkably similar language:
“He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him.”
— Matthew 27:43
Psalm 22:16 describes the sufferer surrounded by enemies and says:
“They pierced My hands and My feet.”
The Gospel accounts describe Jesus being crucified, and after the resurrection He invites Thomas to examine the wounds in His hands (John 20:25–27).
Then Psalm 22:18 says:
“They divide My garments among them, and for My clothing they cast lots.”
John records precisely this scene beneath the cross as Roman soldiers divided Jesus' garments and cast lots for His tunic (John 19:23–24; see also Matthew 27:35).
Psalm 22 even describes physical suffering in language that seems hauntingly appropriate to crucifixion:
“I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me.”
— Psalm 22:14
“My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws.”
— Psalm 22:15
At the cross, Jesus would say:
“I thirst.”
— John 19:28
Psalm 22 was written long before the crucifixion of Jesus, yet when Christians read it in light of the Gospel accounts, its language resonates profoundly with the suffering of Christ.
But there is something even deeper here.
THE SAVIOR WHO KNOWS OUR PAIN
Psalm 22 does more than help us understand the cross.
The cross helps us understand what Psalm 22 means for us.
There are seasons when believers pray their own version of its opening question:
Where are You, God?
Why haven't You answered?
Why did You allow this?
Why does this wound remain?
Why can't I see Your hand?
Scripture never pretends that genuine faith eliminates those questions. In fact, the Bible gives us language for asking them.
Psalm 13 begins, “How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever?”
Habakkuk asks, “O LORD, how long shall I cry, and You will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2).
Job cries out from the confusion of devastating loss.
Even Jesus prays Psalm 22 from the darkness of Calvary.
There is a profound difference between questioning God and abandoning God.
David questions God while continuing to call Him:
“My God.”
That may be one of the quietest expressions of faith in the entire Psalm.
I cannot see You.
I cannot understand You.
I cannot explain what is happening.
I cannot feel Your presence.
But still—
You are my God.
HE HAS BEEN HERE TOO
Christianity does not present us with a Savior who observes human suffering from a safe distance.
Jesus entered it.
Isaiah prophetically describes the Servant of the Lord as:
“A Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.”
— Isaiah 53:3
Hebrews tells us:
“We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.”
— Hebrews 4:15
The word sympathize carries the idea of entering into another's experience. Jesus knows suffering not merely through divine omniscience but through incarnation.
He experienced exhaustion (John 4:6).
He experienced grief (John 11:35).
He experienced rejection (John 1:11).
He experienced betrayal (Luke 22:47–48).
He experienced anguish so intense that in Gethsemane He prayed, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38).
And ultimately, He experienced the horror of the cross.
That means when we bring our wounds to Christ, we are not bringing them to Someone unfamiliar with pain.
He has been here too.
The cross says more than:
“I will save you.”
It also says:
“I know what suffering feels like.”
And yet Jesus does more than sympathize with our pain.
He carries our deepest burden.
Isaiah 53:4–5 declares:
“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows… He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.”
Peter later echoes Isaiah:
“Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree.”
— 1 Peter 2:24
Jesus sees our pain.
Jesus feels our pain.
Jesus enters our pain.
And at the cross, Jesus carries what we could never carry ourselves.
THE PSALM DOESN'T END IN DARKNESS
Perhaps the most important thing to remember about Psalm 22 is that verse 1 is not the final verse.
The Psalm begins:
“Why have You forsaken Me?”
But something happens as David continues praying.
His lament gradually becomes remembrance.
His remembrance becomes trust.
His trust becomes praise.
By verse 22, David declares:
“I will declare Your name to My brethren; in the midst of the assembly I will praise You.”
Hebrews 2:11–12 remarkably applies this portion of Psalm 22 to Christ.
Then the horizon expands even further:
“All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.”
— Psalm 22:27
The suffering of one righteous man ultimately becomes a testimony proclaimed among the nations.
And Psalm 22 concludes:
“They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, that He has done this.”
— Psalm 22:31
The Psalm begins with apparent abandonment.
It ends with proclamation.
It begins with:
“Why?”
It ends with:
“He has done this.”
That movement matters.
Because sometimes we find ourselves living somewhere in the middle of the Psalm.
We know verse 1.
We haven't reached verse 31.
We have the question but not yet the answer.
We have the wound but not yet the healing.
We have the darkness but cannot yet see the dawn.
And faith sometimes means continuing to pray while we are still somewhere between the opening cry and the closing praise.
FROM PSALM 22 TO CALVARY
Jesus entered that darkness Himself.
But Calvary was not the end of His story.
The One who cried Psalm 22 from the cross rose from the grave.
Because of the resurrection, Christians do not believe suffering is meaningless or that death receives the final word.
Paul writes:
“We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:8
And later:
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”
— 2 Corinthians 4:17
Romans 8:18 similarly reminds us that “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”
That does not minimize suffering.
The cross never minimizes suffering.
It reveals how seriously God takes it.
But the resurrection reminds us that suffering does not get to write the final chapter.
So if today you find yourself praying:
“My God, why?”
Keep praying.
Those words are not necessarily evidence that faith has disappeared.
Sometimes they are evidence that faith is hanging on.
Because buried inside the question are two small but powerful words:
My God.
And the One to whom you are crying understands the prayer.
He knows the darkness.
He knows the rejection.
He knows the wound.
He knows the silence.
He knows the tears.
He has been here too.
And He will meet you here.
Take heart. Notice the scattered moments. Share the grace.
Today I invite you to allow your body to relax. Take a deep breath in. And reflect on Psalm 22. Psalm 22 begins with words that sound almost too desperate to belong in the Bible. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? David wrote those words centuries before Jesus was born. They came out of his own suffering, out of a place where God seemed distant. Prayers seemed unanswered. And enemies seemed frighteningly close. But then centuries later, from a cross outside Jerusalem, Jesus reached back into this psalm and made its opening words his own. And suddenly, Psalm 22 becomes more than David's lament. It takes us to Calvary. Listen to the language. All those who see me ridicule me. He trusted in the Lord. Let him rescue him. They pierced my hands and my feet. They divide my garments among them. And for my clothing, they cast lots. The mocking, the humiliation, the physical agony, the gambling for his clothing, the sense of abandonment. Long before the Roman soldiers drove nails through his hands and feet. David gave us words that would echo around Golgotha. But maybe there's something here that we sometimes miss. Psalm 22 doesn't simply tell us something about what happened to Jesus. Because perhaps you've prayed your own version of Psalm 22. God, where are you? Why haven't you answered? Why did you allow this? Why does everyone else seem to have a testimony of deliverance? While I'm still waiting. Psalm 22 gives us permission to say those things. David did. Jesus did. There are moments when faith doesn't sound triumphant. Sometimes faith sounds like a question screamed into the darkness. My God, why? And notice something important. Jesus says, My God, even in agony, even in darkness, even when the Father seems hidden. My God. I don't understand you. I can't see you. I can't feel you. But you are still my God. And perhaps that's where Psalm 22 meets us most deeply. Because Christianity does not give us a Savior who observes suffering from a distance. Jesus knows rejection. He knows betrayal. He knows loneliness. Jesus knows physical pain. Jesus knows what it's like to be mocked. Jesus knows what it feels like to cry out into darkness. He has been here too. Hebrews says that we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness. We have one who entered them. And that's why the cross is more than the place where Jesus says, I will save you. But Psalm 22 does not end at one verse, and neither does the story of Jesus. The lament becomes praised. The isolation begins to widen into the congregation. The suffering becomes a testimony. I will declare your name to my brethren. In the midst of the assembly, I will praise you. And then the horizon gets even wider. All the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord. The psalm that begins with one suffering man crying, Why have you forsaken me? Ends with the nations worshipping God. And then comes this remarkable final thought. They will come and declare his righteousness to a people who will be born that he has done this. He has done this. The suffering wasn't the end. The darkness wasn't the end. The abandonment wasn't the end. God was writing a story that David could not yet see. And maybe that's where you are today. Somewhere between verse 1 and the end. You know the question. You haven't reached the answer yet. Ops 22 and the middle can be frightening. But we have something that David didn't have. We can look back at Calvary. We know that when Jesus cried, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? The story wasn't over. Sunday was coming. So when we find ourselves praying Psalm twenty two, let us remember. You're praying the words Jesus understands. There is no tear you shed that seems strange to him. There is no loneliness he cannot enter. There is no darkness where he is afraid to meet you. And there is no suffering that gets the final word. The cross tells us. He knows. He knows your pain. He knows the agony of sleepless nights. Doubts. Wounds. He knows. The cross tells us he knows. The resurrection tells us there is more. My God, why? Keep praying. Because even those words contain faith. My God and the one you are calling has been there too.
SPEAKER_01My God, why are you forsaking me? My God, why does the wound remain? My God, why have they rejected me? Do you know the pain? Hear my plea, my disjointed cry. See my scars, hear their words to fight. Oh God, the promises seem empty when agony abyss and look to get your head. I'm scared of the strike to see your face. Darkness does not have the final word. The cry becomes a song of praise, and all the earth will hear. So I will tell the generations, I will speak of what you've done. The God who met me in the darkness will lead me toward the sun. Still you are my God. Still you are my God Through the sand, through the questions in my heart, even when the darkness falls. Still you are my God. Why have you forsaken me? You have been still.
