Miss us? Last week, I plain forgot the newsletter until sometime Saturday afternoon. That’s what knee replacement surgery and the corresponding drugs will do to ya! So, after reaching out to Pastor Terry, we decided to just send this week. Then this week has had some significant twists and turns. So yes, you get the newsletter, but I am reaching out to my blogging hero, Farmer Girl, for this week’s insight. Talk to y’all’s next time. Deb
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There is something about reading Psalm 22 alongside the crucifixion that honestly feels almost unsettling because after a while it stops sounding like prophecy and starts sounding like somebody standing at the foot of the cross taking notes in real time. Except David wrote it around a thousand years before Jesus was born. A thousand years before Roman crucifixion even existed, yet line after line sounds exactly like what happened to Jesus.
Jesus is hanging on the cross. His back has been shredded open by scourging. Nails through His hands and feet. Crowds surrounding Him. Religious leaders mocking Him. Soldiers gambling beneath Him like they are bored at a sporting event instead of standing beneath the dying Son of God. The sky itself begins darkening in the middle of the day, and then Jesus cries out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1, ESV). Those were not random words. Jesus was quoting Psalm 22.
And the people there would have known it immediately because Jewish people often referred to entire Psalms by quoting the opening line. Kind of like somebody saying, “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…” and now congratulations, your brain is finishing the song whether you wanted it to or not. So Jesus was not just expressing agony, though He absolutely was suffering more than we can even comprehend. He was pointing directly to Scripture being fulfilled right in front of them.
Then Psalm 22 continues: “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads” (Psalm 22:7, ESV). Which is exactly what happened. People passed by mocking Him, shaking their heads, sneering at Him. The same Jesus who healed blind eyes and raised the dead is now hanging there while humanity collectively decides this would be a fantastic time to become sarcastic.
And then comes another line from the Psalm: “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (Psalm 22:8, ESV). Meanwhile the religious leaders at the cross are saying almost the exact same thing: “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him” (Matthew 27:43, ESV). At some point you would think somebody standing there would have gone, “Okay hold on. This is getting weirdly specific.”
But it keeps going.
Psalm 22 says, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint” (Psalm 22:14, ESV). Which is horrifyingly accurate to crucifixion. Victims pushed upward against nails just to breathe. Shoulders and joints pulling painfully out of place under the weight of their own body. Absolute physical agony. Then the Psalm says, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws” (Psalm 22:15, ESV), and later Jesus says from the cross, “I thirst” (John 19:28, ESV). The suffering was not symbolic. It was real. Bloody. Violent. Exhausting.
And then comes the verse that honestly gives me chills every single time: “They have pierced my hands and feet” (Psalm 22:16, ESV). Again. Written centuries before crucifixion existed. David had no earthly reason to describe death this way, yet there stands Jesus with nails through His body fulfilling words written a thousand years earlier.
And underneath Him, while Jesus hangs dying, the soldiers are casually dividing His belongings like people arguing over leftovers after a church potluck. Psalm 22 says, “They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (Psalm 22:18, ESV). Which is exactly what happened beneath the cross. Not metaphorically. Literally. The soldiers gambled for His clothes while the Creator of the universe bled above them.
But honestly, the part that gets me the most is that Psalm 22 does not end in despair. That is the part people miss. It starts in agony and grief and what feels like abandonment, but slowly the Psalm shifts toward hope and victory and the nations turning to God. “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord” (Psalm 22:27, ESV). Jesus was not just crying out in suffering. He was declaring fulfillment. He was pointing to the fact that this had all been written long before nails ever touched His hands.
And I think there is something incredibly comforting about the fact that Jesus quoted a Psalm that begins with heartbreak because sometimes Christians act like faith means never struggling, never grieving, never feeling crushed by life, never asking hard questions. Meanwhile, Jesus Himself, carrying the weight of sin and suffering on the cross, prayed words soaked in anguish. Not because He lacked faith, but because suffering and faith are not opposites.
Also, imagine being one of the religious leaders standing there hearing Jesus quote Psalm 22 while literally fulfilling Psalm 22 in front of your eyes and somehow still missing it. That is the theological equivalent of standing in the middle of a thunderstorm screaming, “I just do not see any evidence of rain.”
And yet Jesus stayed there anyway.
For the mockers.
For the doubters.
For the disciples who ran.
For Peter who denied Him.
For the soldiers gambling beneath Him.
For people like us who still struggle to trust Him after everything He has already done.
That is the part that wrecks me every time.
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Farmer Girl
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