As we continue along in Psalm 22 we press on in staring into the eyes of our Beloved Savior. Unlike His blood-sweat brow in Gethsemane, the blood that now sweats from His body is caused from the deep wounds of hatred and disgust inflicted by our Lord’s enemies. Jesus looks down at His own body and counts the bones in His chest (v.17). Emaciated and weak, our King looks to be the most helpless Savior to have ever disgraced this earth. Blessed are those who know the rest of this story. Like wings catching a breeze of a mighty wind, so may our low spirits also soar when we look upon our Lord at this very moment, not forgetting what has become of Him.
Patient in unbearable suffering, Jesus strained His head toward heaven and cried out for His Father to deliver Him. “Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed” (vv. 4-5). Look to Jesus once again, distraught believer, for this is the epitome of love hoping in all things (1 Corinthian 13:7). Do you find hope in God today, even though the stakes of this world pierce you down? Has not Jesus asked us to take up our crosses along with Him to Cavalry to be crucified to ourselves? Look past yourself in this moment and realize that it is only by self-righteousness that your worries can possibly overshadow the undeniable hope that we are to have in God.
While in Gethsemane, Jesus humbled His spirit to God in order to prepare Himself for the daunting task ahead. At the Cross, our Lord looked beyond His very life and handed over His body to be used as a sacrifice before God, allowing Himself to become the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18). If it were not for this incomprehensible sacrifice that Jesus had made for all of creation, we would not know the riches of being called the “brethren” of our Lord (Romans 8:29). He is our big Brother whom we look up to and do everything that we can to imitate. Everything that He speaks unto us, we look into His eyes, full of security and kindness, and say “Yes, Brethren.” So as He has asked you once before, may you take up your cross along with Him and deny yourself. Find the hope that our Beloved Brethren had found in our Father in His darkest hour and do not let it go.
Take hope all the more in the fact that the Lord has promised never to leave you, nor forsake you. In our Savior’s final moments of life, our God had not only left Him, but had also forsaken Him. This kind of wrath that our glorious King had endured is never to be upon His people ever again. Like the covenant made with Noah never to cut “all flesh…by the waters of the flood” (Genesis 9:11), our God has finalized His covenant of forgiveness upon His family through the blood of Jesus Christ. Like the rainbow that the Lord had set before Noah, the Cross is set before all believers to look to and know God’s lasting covenant.
Believe in the Savior’s final words, “It is finished” (John 19:30). Our King did not simply “give up His spirit” to death. No, He gave up His spirit to the Lord so that it could be turned into righteousness for all; so that Jesus could be set forth “as a propitiation by His blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His forbearance God passed over the sins that were previously committed” (Romans 3:25). It was not His life that Jesus was giving up and crying out that it was finished in that last breath. It was all rules of principalities and powers, the loosening of the sinful chains that bound us, all doubt, all enslavement to evil; it was the finishing of Jesus’ triumphal procession and His victory over sin (Colossians 2:15). Stand in God’s grace this very moment and thank Him for the victory that the Lamb has won over the wolf. Take on the hope that our Lord Jesus had on that cross, knowing that there is so much more than what we can see in our circumstances. “When weeping endures for the night…we lift our hands and our hearts to the One that we love and we sing.”