Darkest Before The Dawn Part: 2

So about a week ago I suggested you guys read Matthew 27, Mark 15 and Psalm 22. So here is the follow up to that post.

Psalm 22 begins with the same exact phrase Jesus utters on the cross just before he is about to die. What is interesting about Psalm 22 is that it is a classic lament Psalm. Which can be seen in the progression of the writer, David. David begins by expressing to God that he feels like he has left him and travels to the conclusion that God is still in control regardless of David's perspective of God.

30 Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.

31 They will proclaim his righteousness
to a people yet unborn—
for he has done it.

David at the end of the Psalm proclaims that God is righteous and all will know him. David realizes that God is still in control. He also realizes that regardless of what seems to be going on around him he knows God wins in the end.

Now what I find interesting is that Jesus quotes this Psalm and the reason behind it. Jesus quotes just a small portion of this Psalm which would have lead the people there to be reminded of Psalm 22. No most would think Jesus is down and out when he says this statement, but he is not. By quoting this Psalm Jesus is actively saying I have hope. There is more going on here than what we can all see. Jesus is essentially saying "God I know you are going to come through" just as David did. Jesus is in a way predicting his resurrection by saying God is going to come through yet again and God does.

Like David and Jesus we too can have hope that God will come through. We have an entire documented history of God coming through for all different kinds of people. The Bible ends with God winning the final battle. We can live in hope. Hope which at times may seem far off because we cannot see it. But according to Paul if we could see it, it would not be hope at all.

The reason I write this is not for your sake. While I do hope that you get something out of it. I write this for my sake. Sometimes we need to hear something and the only way we hear it is when we speak it. We often serve as prophets in our own lives when we speak to others. So I write this for me. Right now it seems that I'm as low as I can go and I do not see where God is leading. I am in a thick fog so to speak. It would seem that it is time to give up hope, but it is not. God is going to come through. It might be in the last day, last hour or last minute but God is going to come through. I can trust in this. Psalm 22 stands as hope for all of us. God comes through.

Soli Deo Gloria,
Jon Varner

P.S. For an amazing out look on this read David Crowder's newest book Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven, but Nobody Wants to Die: Or the Eschatology of Bluegrass. Or listen to A Collision and/or B Collision.