Man of Sorrows

And in Psalm 22, we see that David is, it’s almost like a lament. It starts off with, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? But most people believe it’s a prophecy pointing to Jesus on the cross, and others think it’s a direct prophecy, as in it doesn’t have anything to do with David, but it has a lot, it only has to do with Jesus. And some also see, or read it, and it appears that David’s having a vision through the eyes of Jesus on the cross.

The last couple of weeks, we have talked about being forsaken, or being on your own after being totally dependent on the Father, and we talked about being despised by the world. Last week, the author calls himself a worm, as in everybody, everybody is trampling on him, and doesn’t even notice who he is, the one who was in the Godhead in heaven, and came down to give everything for us. Now all that’s cool, and I love that you can see David in this, because David, as a shepherd boy, had the wild animals that he would throw the stones at, that he got to practice up before he slayed the giant Goliath, and he would slay lions and bears, and all kinds of wild animals.

So some of these descriptions come through, that when it talks about being intact, it talks about being surrounded by dogs, or lions, or oxen, or something that he sees, and he compares it to, and makes it poetic. But we come across a part in Psalm 22 that makes me stand still every time I look at this. Most scholars look at this and they say, this has nothing to do with David.

So it’s a powerful prophecy of Jesus, whereas we have seen nothing in David’s life, even when Saul was chasing him, even when he was hiding in cages, in caves, when all that was going on with him, this didn’t happen to him. So it’s directly about Jesus. Will you stand as you are able? We’re going to look at Psalm 22, 14 through 21.

I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, it is melted within me. My strength is dried out like a potter, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws, and you lay me in the dust of death.

For dogs have surrounded me, a band of evildoers has encompassed me. They pierce my hands and my feet, I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me, they divide my garments amongst them, and for my clothing they pass lots.

But you, O Lord, be not far off. O you, my help, hasten for my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword, my only life from the power of the dog.

Save me from the lion’s mouth, for the horns of the wild oxen, from the horns of the wild oxen, you answered me. The Word of God, inspired by God, for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

Amen. You may be seated. I’m going to skip right to verse 16.

David says, they pierced my hands and feet. Now, we don’t know any time this happened to David. So normally when we think about piercing the hands and the feet, what do we think about today? What action? Crucifixion.

And in crucifixion, you have the hands pierced. Now, crucifixion started in the 6th or 7th century with the Assyrians. And then it was brought to its horrific perfection by the Romans in Jesus’ time.

Now, the difficult thing about it being started in the 6th or 7th century, that means that when David was alive, there was no crucifixion. He was around a thousand BC. So you’re talking three or four hundred years before crucifixion was even invented.

So David is talking here directly about Jesus. And what Jesus was going through was the most horrific thing you can even imagine. In Mark, we read that they led him to Golgotha and crucified him.

Now, when they pierced the hands and the feet, it’s three spikes. Two in the hands, one in the feet. And when you look, and it’s hard to find historically too many people who have been crucified, because they were so despised and hated and like worms of the world, they were just thrown into pits and piles.

Rarely did they get a favor like Jesus got. Normally, they were just thrown away and disposed of, and there was no nothing to remain to show us. But some of the history that we have that shows the piercing shows that the spikes are more in the wrist.

Have you guys heard that? If you put a spike right here, and you’re hanging by the weight of your hand, it’s just going to slide off. Now, some depictions show the spike in the middle of the hand, and then tie it up there. But the spike, and then with the feet crossed, it goes through there.

So it’s probably more through closer to what we would call the ankle area and the wrist area, of which in ancient times they considered all of this part of the hands and part of the feet. The Greek, the Hebrew word is kara, that we interpret as pierced. It can also mean to dig, to excavate, to bore, to open, to pierce.

And this is exactly what happened with Jesus. Now, one thing we need to know is before Jesus got to the cross, he had been beaten within an inch of his life. Paul talks about getting 39 lashes, because if they give you 40 lashes, that’s supposed to kill you.

And they would, when they beat Jesus, before he even got to the cross, there were metal balls, which would cause deep bruising, and that would not only scratch, but they would dig in to the flesh. Now, there is a point where they put a robe on Jesus. You remember that part where he got a robe and they mocked him, and they put the crown of thorns on him, and they said, all hail the king, and they were just laughing at him.

The soldiers and the temple guard. And the one thing that can happen with putting a robe on, is it also act like a bandage, so he wouldn’t bleed out so much, that he wouldn’t survive carrying the crossbar through the city and out of the city to Golgotha. So, they did this not only to mock him, but they also would have done it to prolong his life, to prolong his suffering, to let him endure that pain for longer.

Now, we know he was already struggling, and in pain, and in a horrific state when they got to the cross, because when we see in Mark 15, 23, that they offered him a mixture of myrrh mixed with wine, and Jesus refused it, but the myrrh acted like a painkiller, and it would help take away the pain, but Jesus knew he was called to endure that pain. So, when he is pierced, and he is hanging on the cross, the arms are up, and the weight of the body goes down, and the arms are hanging there, and the only way to catch a breath, as the fluid fills up in the lungs, is to push against those spikes, and get up high enough that the lungs can get some breath. Now, in Psalms, it says, in Psalm 22, it says, my bones are out of joint.

The shoulder could be disjointed on the cross. It says, I can count all my bones, which either means you can feel the pain in every single bone of your body. You can see them, because of the whipping, and the cutting of flesh that he endured.

How many of you saw The Passion of the Christ? How many of you watch it every single year, because it’s just so fun to watch? I saw The Passion of the Christ with the church I was in, and then I thought, man, that was powerful, and I got the DVD of it, and I’ve never watched the DVD. It’s so horrific, and so gruesome, and it probably old-scratches the service of what Jesus went through. Now, I don’t know how many of you know, but Jim Caviezel played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, and Mel Gibson loved how, with his beard and longer hair, he looked a lot like the depictions that we see from ancient times of Jesus.

But, even though it’s acting, Jim Caviezel went through a lot. He separated his shoulder when he was carrying the crossbar, so it could happen, things can happen when you’re getting beaten, when carrying the crossbar, or hanging from the cross. He separated his shoulder.

They accidentally lashed him a few times in those scenes, and he was struck by lightning. So, I don’t know if that meant he was not preparing Jesus the right way, or he was just part of it. He had to suffer a fraction of what Jesus suffered.

The psalmist goes on to say, Now, normally, when I read that, I think about the texture of wax, and how it’s squishy and waxy, but the point is, it’s melted. What happens in crucifixion is the heart stops getting oxygen, it becomes oxygen-deprived. In fact, it has dehydration and filling up of fluids, and those fluids make it so the heart can’t get oxygen, the lungs can’t get oxygen, you have to put those spikes, and it melts.

It’s like it stopped. You know how your heart pounds when you’re in pain? Anything else? He would have been feeling that, and then the sensation of the heart not feeling it. Eventually, how you die during crucifixion is carnally correct.

According to the Heart Institute, the arrest is more of the heart stopping, arresting, being held in place, instead of a heart attack, where it’s different. It just stops. It melts.

You can’t feel it anymore. It’s just not working. Your pulse becomes more and more faint.

Was that fair enough on cardiac arrest? He’ll correct me later. David goes on to say, I was torn out like water. Torn out like water comes with a couple different senses.

The energy, the strength, the life, and a sense of fatigue from dehydration and asphyxia that would occur. Now, I didn’t know this because I’ve heard, you know, the fluid fills up, but it also causes, it’s like drowning, but it’s a form, drowning is a form of asphyxiation, because I think of asphyxiation as just not being able to get any air in, but it’s not being able to get oxygen in. He felt the life drain out of him.

He says his strength was dried up like a potsherd. A potsherd is just like a broken piece of pottery. That’s not holding any life in it.

That’s not holding anything in it. It’s just a part of one’s was. He says my tongue cleaves to my jaw.

In Mark 15, 36, we see that toward the end, they gave him a drink because he cried that he was thirsty. Dehydration occurs when you lose, when you use or lose more fluid than you take in, and your body doesn’t have enough water and other fluids to carry out its normal functions. If you don’t replace those fluids, you become more and more dehydrated.

Suffocation or progressive asphyxia occurs from the oxygen deprivation. You no longer have the strength to push up, because your body, have you seen the pictures of Jesus sitting down? The body loses its strength to push itself up, and he’d go through all of that. Crucifixion by the Romans is one of the most gruesome forms of punishment.

It’s not only meant to kill you, it’s meant to take away any dignity you have. Any sense of you even being human is lost when they do this. It’s just horrible.

So what’s the point of going through all this? What’s the point of reliving what Jesus did? Because when we see in Mark and it says, and they crucified him, we don’t always get the sense of what Jesus went through. I mean, it makes you think more and more, man, if it was me, I think I would have stayed in heaven. I think I would have stayed in paradise.

I think I would have stayed on vacation. Sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks through. I would have stayed on vacation.

Instead of coming here and working and enduring and giving every last breath you have. Isaiah 53 says this about Jesus. He was pierced through for our transgressions.

He was crushed for our iniquities. The chasing for our well-being fell upon Him. And by His scourging, we are healed.

The Son of Man lays down His own life. He can pick it up whenever He wants. Jesus could have walked away from all this.

Just like He walked through the crowds when they tried to push Him over the cliff. He could have jumped down from the cross. He had that within Him.

But He was pierced through for us. He gave it all for us. He was poured out for us.

He loves us that much. He loves us so much to suffer and to die and to take the pain not only of the piercing. Not only of the beating.

Not only of the humiliating embarrassment of being on the cross. Maybe in a loincloth. Maybe.

But He did that so He could take all that we do. Every time we forget about Jesus. Every time we turn our back on God.

Every time we walk away. Every time we are selfish, self-righteous. Every time we don’t care about what God says in our lives.

And everyone in all of history. He took that on the cross so we could be forgiven. So we could be in the presence of God.

So we could one day also be in the throne room of God where Jesus came from. And we could worship God. And we could experience God.

And we could be in the presence of God. He was pierced. Because we had no other way for that.

He was pierced. So we could live. That’s love.

Do you remember way back when? Last month? When we were in 1 John 4 and 5. And we went over and over about the love of God. In fact, even John going to the point of saying God is love. Only love could have done that for you and me.

Only love could have offered that. Jesus was a man of sorrows. So we could experience true joy.

Jesus endured everything that cross had to offer. So we wouldn’t have to endure that kind of hell for our whole lives. But Jesus also says this in Mark 8. If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

We’re still in an imperfect world. We’re still in a place where bad things happen to good people. We’re still in a place where we have to suffer.

Where we have imperfect bodies. I was walking through the garage this week and saw the reminder of my crutches. That I stuck behind a cabinet in a garage.

That a couple years ago I fractured my hip and I remember laying on top of that mountain. And then the crew coming up and carrying me down the mountain. Behind the sled.

And then the whole group gathered around with the tarp underneath trying to lift me up. And the young lady who was lifting up right by my hip. And I remember saying, that’s probably not a good place to lift.

That’s too much pain. I can’t take it. But I think, if I was on my own like Jesus, I would have had to walk down or crawl down or slide down that mountain all by myself.

That’s what Jesus endured on the cross for us. But we have a cross. And sometimes our cross is our suffering and our pain from physical ailments and things that come up in life.

But the cross is, in a sense, whatever the world has to throw at us. Now they might not want to crucify us, but they might want to embarrass us. They might want to put us down.

They might want to put us in our place. They might want to shut our mouths so the world can’t hear about Jesus anymore. But we have a cross to bear.

We have sorrows we have to face. Not just for ourselves, but for Jesus. And no matter what we’re facing in life, no matter how difficult it is, we have a cross to carry.

We have a ministry that will go against the grain of the world. That travels upstream. That seems unnatural.

That can only be led if we allow the power of the Holy Spirit to work through us so we can carry our cross. As you go through this Lenten season. As you suffer with something and give something up.

So you can draw into the presence of Jesus. So you can understand just a fraction of what he went through for us. And so when we think about more and more how reliant we are on our own comforts.

And how reliant we are on certain other things that we choose not to really totally lean on God. When God doesn’t act in our timing all the time. When you think about all that, I challenge you to pray, God, give me the strength to carry my cross.

Give me the strength to suffer for you. Give me the strength to sacrifice so that the gospel of Jesus Christ can save a life. Can save a soul.

Please stand as you are able. As we see this last sign, I invite you to put your arms out. Stretching.

Let’s say this together. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

And the life I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Let’s pray.

Almighty God, thank you for all that you endured for us. Thank you for giving so much for us. Even though we don’t deserve it, that is the meaning of grace.

You gave it all. Because we are sinners. Because we are sinners in need of grace.

Help us to continue to repent, to trust in you. And know that you understand when we suffer. You understand when we hurt.

And you understand when we experience backlash in the face of the gospel. We crucify ourselves to our pride. To our own agenda.

And we live for Jesus every day. Amen.