The Songs of Jesus

Scripture: Psalm 38; Psalm 22

Sermon: The Songs of Jesus

Topics: lament, cross, sin, suffering, Psalm 5

Preached: March 18, 2018

Rev. Mike Abma

¹ O Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger,

   or discipline me in your wrath. 

² For your arrows have sunk into me,

   and your hand has come down on me. 

³ There is no soundness in my flesh

   because of your indignation;

there is no health in my bones

   because of my sin. 

⁴ For my iniquities have gone over my head;

   they weigh like a burden too heavy for me. 

⁵ My wounds grow foul and fester

   because of my foolishness; 

⁶ I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;

   all day long I go around mourning. 

⁷ For my loins are filled with burning,

   and there is no soundness in my flesh. 

⁸ I am utterly spent and crushed;

   I groan because of the tumult of my heart. 

⁹ O Lord, all my longing is known to you;

   my sighing is not hidden from you. 

¹⁰ My heart throbs, my strength fails me;

   as for the light of my eyes—it also has gone from me. 

¹¹ My friends and companions stand aloof from my affliction,

   and my neighbours stand far off. 

¹² Those who seek my life lay their snares;

   those who seek to hurt me speak of ruin,

   and meditate treachery all day long. 

¹³ But I am like the deaf, I do not hear;

   like the mute, who cannot speak. 

¹⁴ Truly, I am like one who does not hear,

   and in whose mouth is no retort. 

¹⁵ But it is for you, O Lord, that I wait;

   it is you, O Lord my God, who will answer. 

¹⁶ For I pray, ‘Only do not let them rejoice over me,

   those who boast against me when my foot slips.’ 

¹⁷ For I am ready to fall,

   and my pain is ever with me. 

¹⁸ I confess my iniquity;

   I am sorry for my sin. 

¹⁹ Those who are my foes without cause are mighty,

   and many are those who hate me wrongfully. 

²⁰ Those who render me evil for good

   are my adversaries because I follow after good. 

²¹ Do not forsake me, O Lord;

   O my God, do not be far from me; 

²² make haste to help me,

   O Lord, my salvation.

This is the Word of the Lord

Thanks be to God

INTRODUCTION — Psalm 22

In 2004 I wrote a Maundy Thursday liturgy that focused on two things:

1. the seven last words of Jesus from the cross

2. the words of Psalm 22.^[1]

What amazed me in working on that service is how much of Psalm 22 resonates directly with what Jesus experienced on the cross.

Let me refresh your memory with a few quotations from Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 begins with those heart-piercing words,

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me.

These are the words Jesus himself cries from the cross.

But Psalm 22 has so much more.

Listen.

They divide my clothes among themselves

And for my clothes they cast lots (22:18)

I am scorned by others

despised by the people.

All who see me, mock me

And say, “Let God save you.” (22:6)

I am poured out like water,

All my bones are out of joint;

My heart melts like wax,

My mouth is dry as a clay pot,

My tongue sticks to my mouth,

You lay me in the dust of death (22:14)

We read these words and can’t help but think that it is almost as if Jesus is living Psalm 22.

I imagine that after Jesus rose from the dead, the disciples would have been tempted to put the cross behind them.

The memory of it would have been so painful, so shameful.

I imagine they would have been tempted to focus only on the resurrection – the glorious, triumphant resurrection.

But then they would have turned to the Old Testament.

They would have turned to the psalms and seen

all these fore-shadowings of the cross,

all these descriptions of what Jesus ended up suffering.

In fact, the more the disciples read the Old Testament,

the more they would have seen Christ and his crucifixion.

It was not only in Psalm 22.

It was all through the Old Testament, but especially in the Psalms,

and especially in the Psalms of lament.

SONGS OF JESUS

We know that Jesus quoted the Psalms more than any other Old Testament book.

We know that Jesus knew the Psalms and prayed the Psalms.

What we sometimes forget is that

the psalms were not only sung by Jesus,

but that the Psalms were also about Jesus.

I have already mentioned this in reference to Psalm 22.

How about another Psalm we read earlier this service – Psalm 61.

Psalm 61 begins this way:

Hear my cry, O Lord,

Listen to my prayer

From the ends of the earth I call to you

when my heart is faint.

Can’t you imagine Jesus praying that prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane?

So how about Psalm 38, the one we just read.

There we read in verses 3-4

There is no soundness in my flesh

because of your indignation;

There is no health in my bones

because of my sin.

For my iniquities have gone over my head.

They weigh like a burden too heavy to bear.

I can imagine your objection.

How can this be a psalm that Jesus prayed?

How can this be a psalm about Jesus?

Jesus was sinless.

This is a psalm about confessing sin and iniquities.

So it can’t be about Jesus, can it?

Here are a few things we need to remember.

* Yes, Jesus was sinless,

and yet, yet, Jesus became sin for us.

This is what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:21

For our sake God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin

so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

God made Jesus to be sin who knew no sin.

There is a great mystery here,

but it is the mystery that explains the cross.

Jesus, who knew no sin,

became sin

for our sake.

Jesus, who knew no separation from his heavenly Father,

was disconnected from his Father,

for our sake.

Jesus did all this to take on the full weight of God’s indignation against sin,

for our sake.

Can you hear how Psalm 38 may not be so far from Jesus’ reality?

“iniquities have gone over my head,

They weigh like a burden too heavy for me.”

The weight of sin, our sin,

the burden of it

caused Jesus to be,

in the words of later verses in Psalm 38

…utterly bowed down and prostrate

…utterly spent and crushed

Jesus lived so much of Psalm 38.

SISTER DOROTHY

Perhaps an analogy might help.

Kathleen Harmon writes that she cannot read Psalm 5 without thinking of her friend, Sister Dorothy Stang.

Psalm 5 begins this way:

Give ear to my words, O God,

Give head to my sighing.

O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice,

In the morning I plead my cause to you, and watch.

So why does she think of Dorothy whenever she reads this Psalm?

It is because of what happened to Dorothy Stang.

Sister Dorothy was a Roman Catholic nun who lived and worked in the Amazon jungle area of Brazil for over 20 years.

She lived and worked with the poorest people in that region.

She did all she could to protect them from the loggers and ranchers

who were always trying to run the poor off the land.

Sister Dorothy had been threatened many times,

but she felt she needed to stick with her people.

One day she heard of a village that had been burnt to the ground,

probably by ranchers or loggers.

The village was a 2-day walk away.

She decided to go to the village to bring what comfort she could,

and to encourage them to rebuild.

It was on her way home from that burnt-down village that she ran into 2 men.

She was pretty sure that they were there to harm her or threaten her.

She raised her hands and gave them a blessing.

Then she carried on to the village where she was planning to spend the night.

The next morning she got up early to pray.

Then she set out on her final leg home.

She again ran into those 2 men.

She again raised her hands in blessing,

but this time they shot her – 6 times.

She died.

O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice,

In the morning I plead my cause to you, and watch.

Can you see why Kathleen Harmon

cannot read Psalm 5 without thinking of Sister Dorothy

and her early morning groan for God’s justice?

CONCLUSION

In much the same way,

we,

who know the story of Jesus,

who know what he suffered and endured,

cannot read Psalms like Psalm 22, or 61, or 38

or other Psalms of lament like them

without sensing that the cries of these psalms

are also the cries Jesus.

In a moment we are going to sing a setting of Psalm 38.

Before singing,

take a quick look at the line in italics below that hymn.

It reads

This entire psalm can be heard as the cry of God’s people.

Stanzas 3,4,6 can also be heard as Jesus’ cry in his passion

Let’s sing this setting of Psalm 38

not only as our cry, but also Christ’s cry:

The cry of the one who loved us so much

that he was determined to step into our place,

and take our unbearable burden upon himself,

as though the burden had been his own.

Amen

PRAYER

SING Rebuke Me Not in Anger Lord 150: 1,3,4,6 (a setting of Psalm 38)

1. See Mike Abma, “Listening at the Foot of the Cross” in Reformed Worship 78, December 2005. ↑