ferlinfie

B. The Reality of Suffering

   1. (12-18) his condition

12 Many bulls encompass me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me; 13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast; 15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. 16 Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet-- 17 I can count all my bones-- they stare and gloat over me; 18 they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast lots.

The Psalmist returns to his complaint. In very stylized and poetic language he describes his pain. It sounds like he might be facing impending death due to a creeping disease. Anyone who has watched the horrible progression of cancer in a loved one understands the language here, and the feelings of isolation and abandonment! We are still not sure what the problem is. But we know it is serious.

   2. (19-21) his petition

 19 O LORD, be not far off! You who are my help, hasten to my aid! 20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! 21 Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen!

Again, the psalmist requests God’s intervention in his present circumstances. Although highly poetic, it is a simple prayer. And it is to the point. He needs help. And he asks for it. No bargains with God. Just honest request.

C. The reality of God’s Presence

   1. (22-24) Move to trust in the midst of pain

22 I will tell of your name to my brethren; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you: 23 You who fear the LORD, praise him! all you sons of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you sons of Israel! 24 For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; and he has not hid his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.

Here is the heart of the Psalm. The transformation of the psalmist is complete here. He has moved from the dark despair of verse one to a point where he can talk about embracing a future filled with possibilities, even proclaiming those possibilities to others!

Not only has his own perspective changed, he is now calling on others to praise God. The one who began by questioning where God is now calls on others to stand in His presence! Where he had earlier complained that God had not heard him, he now affirms that God has heard him.

Again we must ask what has happened since verse 1? What great event of deliverance has occurred that caused such a radical turnaround for the Psalmist.

And we will be surprised at the answer. Nothing! Nothing has changed! No miracle. No great vision of God. No promise of a solution. No hint of resolution of the problem. He is still in the midst of his crisis. Nothing has changed.

Except, the Psalmist has worshipped God from the midst of His pain. He has prayed.  He has brought his pain honestly to God. He has asked God to intervene. And he has left his hurt in God’s hands. He has trusted God. He has been totally, authentically human before God. And it has brought healing and a renewed faith.

The change has not come because God has changed, or because circumstances have changed. It has come with the psalmist as he has faced his pain honestly, and released it to God in prayer, with God’s help, and strength, and grace. He has laid his burdens at God’s feet, with all the force that his emotions honestly require. And he has left them there.

He has found newness and hope simply by coming into the presence of God as a needy human being. No pretense. No nice words. Just the psalmist, and his pain. And God! That is praise in its purest form. That is worship at its most honest level. That is being authentically human before God. There God does some of His best work!

   2. (25-31) Concluding doxology

 25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear him. 26 The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live for ever! 27 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. 28 For dominion belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations. 29 Yea, to him shall all the proud of the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and he who cannot keep himself alive. 30 Posterity shall serve him; men shall tell of the Lord to the coming generation, 31 and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, that he has wrought it.

These verses conclude with an renewed affirmation of trust in God. But the only way to verse 31, is through verses 1 and 2!

IV. The Real World, Past and Present

Barbara was a young lady in her 20s who had returned to school to finish her education. She was a pleasant person, committed to God and an apparently stable Christian. She enrolled for one of my classes in the Fall term. Barbara was single and I had never inquired why she was not married. One day I gave a devotional from a lament psalm about dealing with grief. She hung around after class and said she wanted to talk so we sat up an appointment for later that afternoon.

She had not been in my office five minutes before she began to weep. One of the first things she said to me was, "I hate God." I had heard it before from others so it didn’t shock me. I simply asked her if she wanted to talk about it.

She poured out a story of grief and pain that I could not have imagined. Among other things, she had been sexually abused for years as a child. To get out of a horrible home situation, she had married at sixteen. Her first child had died as an infant two years later. Not long after that her husband, who had beat her regularly, simply walked out one day.

At twenty she had known more hurt than most of us will ever know in a lifetime. Did she really hate God? I don’t know. I don’t think so. But I don’t really think it mattered. Hate is an emotion, and she was full of emotion. She felt as if God had forsaken her.

As we talked it became clear that she did not know what to do with her anger, grief and hurt. She thought that to be a Christian meant that she was not supposed to have the feelings she had. She thought that serving God meant that she should somehow just be happy because she was a Christian. But she was not happy. She hurt too deeply. We sat and read Psalm 22 together.

Barbara’s healing did not come at once. Over the next months there were many talks, many prayers, many tears. There were other friends, and a caring pastor, to help. Still, Barbara needed professional counseling to help her deal with her past. But healing came.

I got a call from Barbara not too long ago. She is on a professional career track, and happy for the first time in her life. She told me she discovered one thing that day in the corner chair in my office as we read Psalm 22 together. She found that she could be honest with God. And it was the beginning of her new future.

Like the Psalmist, she began to understand that God is not offended by our honesty, he is not angered when we express our hurts to him. We do not have to treat God like a doddering old man who cannot bear the least little turmoil. God can handle our hurts, our honesty. He can tolerate our irreverence from the midst of our despair.

For you see, there was a time when his own Son was hurting. The incarnate son of God had suffered the worst indignities possible. Mocked, rejected, spat upon, beaten, scourged, tortured, abandoned by his friends, dying, he prayed the prayer of Psalm 22 from the cross: Eli, eli lamah sabachtani. God where are you?

He knew God was there. Yet he hurt. He did not feel very lordly; the pain was too great. So he cried the cry of a human being from the midst of his pain. It was honest. And God could handle it. Because that cry was a cry of faith. If Jesus can be that honest, should we not also?

The message is simply this: total honesty before God is the deepest expression of faith in Him and is the only way to be authentically human in God’s world. It is the only path to spiritual wholeness, and the only way to heal the hurts of the past.

It is human to hurt. As long as we live in these bodies, we will experience grief and pain. We will be human. And that’s OK. But we also know that in the midst of our humanity, in the midst of our hurt, we can praise a God who cares, a God who is there with us, a God who knows how we feel and bears the pain with us.

The praise may not be the hand-clapping kind of praise. But it can be genuine. For in that kind of praise that screams our pain to God, there is healing. And in that healing we begin the move from darkness to light, from despair to hope, death to life, from hurt to joy.

V. Meditation

We have come together here today to offer praise to God. We will not praise because we feel good, because some don’t feel very good this evening. We will not praise because everything is going great, because for some, things aren’t going all that great. We will not praise to persuade God to do something for us, because God does not need to be begged and persuaded to act in our world or to care for us. We will not praise to force God to respond to us, because God is sovereign and is not obligated to jump when we snap our fingers. We will not praise as an act of magic that will automatically cause everything to be put in its proper order, because God is not a god of magic solutions. We will not praise because we are pious or holy or righteous, because we have no merit that earns God’s favor to us.

We come to God with praise simply because HE IS GOD. We come with praise because by His grace and mercy extended to us, we are His people. He is worthy of our praise, even when that praise is a cry of pain from the depths of our being.

There may be those next to you who are hurting. You may be hurting. Or burdened with past pains and frustrations that are keeping you from embracing the future possibilities that God has promised.

We are going to pray together, to praise God together. We are going to be the people of God, the body of Christ. We are going to share each other’s hurts. We are going to weep with each other, if necessary. We are going to intercede for each other. And in so doing, we are worshipping the God who can do exceeding, abundantly above all that we can ask or even think. We are going to worship the God with whom nothing is impossible.

We will worship in faith. But our faith is not in a set of circumstances. Our faith is in God and in Him alone. Our prayer acknowledges that He is Lord, that He is Creator, that He is the only source of life, that He is sovereign in our world. We will come into his presence with a faith like Habakkuk’s (Hab 3:17-19):

17. Though the fig tree does not blossom, and no fruit is on the vines; though the produce of the olive fails, and the fields yield no food; though the flock is cut off from the fold, and there is no herd in the stalls; 18. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will exult in the my God salvation, 19. God, the Lord, is my strength.

We come with a child-like faith that simply trusts. And in so doing we are willing to turn from our past to God’s future.

Concluding Song: Be Still My Soul

-Dennis Bratcher, Copyright © 2012, Dennis Bratcher - All Rights Reserved