“My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” (v. 1a). Few words in all of Scripture strike with such gravity. David utters them from the depths of suffering, yet they reach their fullest meaning when spoken by Christ from the cross. In this cry, the Son of God enters the most desolate terrain of human experience: the terror of divine absence. “Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of My groaning?” (v. 1b). God’s silence intensifies the pain. Heaven seems closed to your prayers. Yet even here, the address remains: My God. The bond isn’t severed, even when consolation is absent. This lament is not unbelief; it is faith enduring the unbearable, holding fast when assurance has vanished.
“But You are holy, enthroned in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in You… and You delivered them” (vv. 3-4). The psalm oscillates between anguish and memory. Amidst mockery and humiliation (vv. 7-8), David—and ultimately Jesus—recalls the unbroken record of God’s faithfulness. The past presses into the present, creating a tension that defines the mystery of the cross. What appears as abandonment is bound up with divine purpose. Jesus inhabits this psalm in startling precision: the taunts of the crowd, the piercing of hands and feet, the casting of lots for His garments (vv. 16-18). David’s lament unfolds as prophecy. Each line becomes a window through which Calvary is revealed.
Psalm 22 also becomes the Church’s vocabulary for suffering. It gives voice to prayer when God feels distant and language falters. It’s spoken in hospital rooms, whispered in grief, and clung to when sorrow overwhelms speech. The question of “why” is neither suppressed nor redirected; it is lifted toward God. That movement itself is faith. The profound comfort lies here: Christ prayed this psalm before us and on our behalf. There is no anguish He has not entered and no forsakenness He hasn’t borne. Because He cried out in this way, every cry raised in His name reaches Heaven with assurance.
Then comes the turn of the entire prayer: “You have answered Me” (v. 21b). With these simple words, the psalm moves us from desolation into proclamation. The horizon widens dramatically. “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the LORD’S, and He rules over the nations” (vv. 27-28). What began in isolation culminates in universal—catholic—hope. The One who seemed abandoned is revealed as the reigning King. The promise stretches beyond any single generation—toward “a people who will be born, that He has done this” (v. 31). The language resonates unmistakably with Christ’s final declaration from the cross: “It is finished.” Lament gives way to victory. Silence yields to salvation.
Psalm 22 begins with a question that pierces the soul, yet it concludes with an unshakable confession: He has done this. And because He has, no cry uttered in suffering is lost and no prayer spoken in darkness is ignored. In Christ, the forsaken are remembered, gathered, and held forever in the mercy of the risen King.
The Lutheran Column 