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A Recap from Sunday’s Sermon

Preaching Text: Matthew 27:45-54

As we are coming to the end of Lent, we still find ourselves in the middle of the storm caused by COVID-19. When fear enters our hearts, doubts arise which tend to make us blind to God’s presence in our lives.

But is God really absent? Where is he in the midst of everything?

When we look closer at Jesus’ last words on the cross in Matthew 27:46 (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”) there are at least two things we can draw encouragement from:

1. Jesus, who is God in human form, is co-experiencing our human cry of feeling forsaken by God. He truly is a great high priest who sympathizes with our weakness (see Hebrews 4:15).

He is not absent.

2. Jesus was fulfilling Scripture. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” was a direct quote from Psalm 22:1. In Jewish culture, when you quoted the first line of a Psalm you were basically referring to its entire message. Compare this to someone singing the opening line of the American national anthem, “Oh say can you see…”. You would be reminded of things like struggle, war, courage, victory, freedom, etc. 

What is Psalm 22 saying? In amazing detail, it prophetically describes Jesus’ crucifixion, gives us the reassurance that God will not leave the oppressed ones, and ends with the declaration that “He has finished it” (verse 31). This reminds us of Jesus’ victorious last words in John 19:30, “It is finished.”

I believe that by quoting Psalm 22:1, Jesus was encouraging us to not lose heart but to hold on to God’s Word, trusting that our tragedies do not take God by surprise. He has the last word, a word of victory!

Take it Home: I want to encourage you today to read through Psalm 22 on your own and ask the Holy Spirit to apply it to you personally.