His suffering. Our response.

 

We are working our way through an extremely meaningful psalm, Psalm 22. Here are our verses for today:

Many bulls surround me; strong bulls of Bashan encircle me. 

 Roaring lions that tear their prey open their mouths wide against me. 

 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me. 

My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death. 

Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. 

All my bones are on display; people stare and gloat over me. 

They divide my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. (vs. 12-18)

His enemies are compared in these verses to ferocious animals: bulls, lions, and dogs. Jesus' enemies stood at the foot of the cross or circled around it, snarling their hate and snorting their ridicule and lies. In spite of the fact that He could have called ten thousand angels to His side, our Savior suffered silently.

The humiliation and the agony of the cross is almost more than we believers can bear without breaking down into tears. We cannot read this and remain unmoved at how our Savior suffered.

As we read verses fourteen through eighteen, we read amazing prophecies of Jesus' crucifixion. I've read several commentaries that say they prove the divine inspiration of the Bible -- because this was written hundreds of years before crucifixion was known to man. It arose as a means of torture somewhere in the East, maybe in the time of the Medes and Persians, and Alexander the Great appears to have brought it to the West. The Romans learned it from the Phoenicians and they perfected it as a means of execution. The Romans reserved it for the worst of criminals; it was a way to humiliate the victim as death approached, and a way to intimidate others into submission. Crucifixion was brutal, torturous, an exceedingly slow and painful death.

The psalmist could not possibly have known about the experience, yet he wrote about it:

"Poured out like water" - points to the excessive perspiration from the suffering in the sun, as well as the feeling of weakness as life ebbed away. Jesus cried out, "I thirst!"

"Bones out of joint" -- the feeling of being stretched out by the arms as He hung on the cross; each time He would push up with His legs in order to inhale, the pain and weakness would cause Him to slump back down, pulling on his shoulder joints and pierced hands.

"Heart turned to wax and melted" -- His heart was struggling to supply blood to His body.

"Strength dried up like a potsherd, tongue sticks to roof of mouth" -- extreme thirst as His body was dehydrated.

"Surrounded by evil men" -- at the scene of the cross, His enemies awaited His death.

"Pierced hands and feet" -- we know that they nailed His precious hands and His feet. 

"Count all my bones" and "people stare" -- His body was stretched naked on the cross; it was a public execution, designed to humiliate and intimidate.

"Divide my clothes and cast lots for my garment" -- this is a specific prophecy given to David; it describes the activity of the soldiers at the foot of the cross.

Yes, David prophecied this. I don't know if the Spirit allowed him to know that his words would someday describe the Savior of the world. But David described the physical and emotional agony of Christ's crucifixion.

Through my tears, I must ask all of us -- how should we respond to Christ who suffered for us?

Our first response should be to truly understand the greatness of our own sins, and the greatness of Jesus' love. 

Our sins put Jesus on the cross. 

His love made Him willing to be on the cross.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

I went to high school at a private school that is a part of a university. You may have heard over the years of Bob Jones University.  Bob Jones, Sr. was an evangelist of the early twentieth century, and his son, Bob, Jr. was a great admirer of religious art and purchased paintings to add to the Fine Art and Religion departments of the school.  I visited the gallery several times and learned a lot (which I have mostly forgotten, I'm sad to say) about art and history. In the gallery was a Rembrandt etching - perhaps a sketch or idea-piece for his famous painting, "The Crucifixion." 

The focus of the painting was, of course, our Savior on the cross. But there is a group of people, a crowd, in fact, gathered about the foot of the cross. Standing there at the foot of the cross is a figure that art historians say looks like paintings and self-portraits of . . . . Rembrandt himself.

We all need to join Rembrandt at the foot of the cross. Our sins put Him there. We need to make it personal - my sins put Jesus there. 

Take a moment and let that sink in. If I (or you) were the only person on earth, our sins would have put Jesus on the cross. Wait, whoa, hold on, you say? After all, I was raised in a Christian home; I went to church every time the doors were open; I'm not a bad sinner like some other people I know. 

But here's the thing . . . 

The more I grow as a Christian, the more I realize how utterly wicked my heart is. And realizing how sinful I am makes me cling ever more tightly to the cross, and ask Him for His mercy.

That's not popular today.

We've even changed Isaac Watts' awesome hymn in some of our hymnbooks to read "for someone such as I?" instead of "for such a worm as I?" 

Alas! and did my Savior bleed?

And did my Sov'reign die?

Would He devote that sacred head

For such a worm as I?

But that is what Jesus called Himself when He bore our sins . .  . . I'd rather be identified with Him, thank you very much.

No, it's not popular to call attention to our sinfulness. But we need to be careful not to exalt ourselves. Do we think we are pretty good folks? That God just needed to give us a teensy boost to get us into heaven? 
Then we won't love Jesus much. 

But if we realize that we were lost in rebellion against our holy Father, and that He saved us from hell IN SPITE of our sin, and we are now forgiven -- then we will love Him oh, so much.

“He who has stood before his God, convicted and condemned, with the rope about his neck, is the man to weep for joy when he is pardoned, to hate the evil which has been forgiven him, and to live to the honour of the Redeemer by whose blood he has been cleansed”  (Charles Spurgeon's autobiography)

As we prepare to celebrate Christmas, this glimpse of the cross in Psalm 22 should impress upon us the greatness of our sin -- and the greatness of God's love.